


Distinction

by JimIntoMystery



Series: Futility [5]
Category: Star Trek
Genre: Delta Quadrant, Gen, The Borg, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-28
Updated: 2015-01-29
Packaged: 2018-03-09 10:39:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 28
Words: 28,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3246569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JimIntoMystery/pseuds/JimIntoMystery
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Even if Commander Kreighen can lead his crew safely out of Borg space, his career in Starfleet is in shambles.  The best he can hope for is to repair his relationship with his Andorian second-in-command.  When their ship detects the wreckage of a Borg sphere in an uncharted star system, Kreighen sees an opportunity to salvage vital technology, and a pretext to spend time talking alone with Lieutenant Tirava.</p>
<p>But the mystery of the crashed ship quickly turns deadly.  Kreighen and Tirava unravel a secret that threatens to destroy the <i>Hrunting</i> crew...and jeopardize the entire war against the Borg Collective.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The Borg had invaded her ship. This time, she swore, would be different. 

The last time had been on the other side of the galaxy, half a lifetime ago. The Borg had only just begun sending advance scouting missions into the outskirts of Federation space, and the USS _Tombaugh_ had been among the first Starfleet vessels overrun by the invaders. Tirava was a junior officer, left in command by a quirk of fate, and had no idea what she was up against. But then, neither did the Borg; she was the first Andorian ever encountered by their collective consciousness. And so when she attempted to negotiate terms of surrender, they incorporated her distinctiveness to their own. She was mutilated and transformed into a cybernetic automaton, obedient to Borg culture and philosophy; her ship was raided and similarly plundered for anything relevant to their interests.

For the next twenty-three years, Tirava and any other "survivors" of the _Tombaugh_ lived as soulless drones in the Delta Quadrant, where the heart of the Borg Collective was centered. She wasted her days performing menial tasks as a cog in the great machine that had enslaved her. And then one day her government finally came for her, and everyone else in the Alpha Quadrant who had ever been threatened by the Borg. Over the decades the Federation and its allies had developed new technologies to resist and overpower the Borg, and so they dispatched a vast armada to meet the enemy at its door. Tirava and thousands of other drones were captured, disconnected from the hive mind, and liberated from their living hell.

But it was revenge, not liberty, that Tirava needed. Starfleet's war plans did not include her--putting de-assimilated officers back on active duty was too great a security risk. And so she continued to waste her days, treated more like an enemy sleeper agent than an ex-prisoner of war, until she met a man who finally got her back into space. Back into combat. Back into trouble.

Tirava shut these thoughts out of her mind as she skulked through the dim corridors of the _Albatross_. Andorians were not known for their discipline or focus, but even they understood that their legendary fury could be a liability. Her hate was like a flame that was best kept hot enough to destroy her enemies, but not _so_ hot as to consume herself. So she focused on the Borg, and what they had done to her. Better to linger on those old wounds than her history with Jake Kreighen.

As she reached a junction the glow around the corner began to flicker, and she stepped back. The enemy had evidently begun to restore power to this deck, in spite of the best efforts of the _Albatross_ 's skeleton crew to besiege them for three days. They had transported aboard during a Borg ambush, and had been stranded ever since their mothership was destroyed in the battle. Any other party of raiders would have had the sense to surrender, but the Borg didn't care; the survivors simply continued their mission for as long as it took Tirava and her shipmates to flush them out. This nest of drones, deep in the bowels of the ship, was the last to meet their fate with indifference.

Tirava looked back to her strike team and whispered her assessment of the situation. "They must have tapped into their own power reserves to activate the distribution nodes. There's no more time to plan this--we have to move in now, and hard."

In a sense she was talking to empty space. There were only four people--that is, purely organic people--aboard the _Albatross_ , a captured Borg vessel designed to carry a crew of thousands. As such, the task of ferreting out the Borg stowaways would have been virtually impossible if not for their complement of holographic soldiers. Composed of little more than light and force fields animated by artificial intelligence, the "hollow men" were specifically designed to kill the Borg without offering them living flesh to injure or assimilate. 

The very purpose of Sergeant Ajax's existence was to lead a squad of these holograms into battle so that people like Tirava would not have to. As such, he strongly disapproved of her role in this mission. "Lieutenant," he muttered, "I must strongly advise you to fall back. This will be easier for us without you."

"But not easier for me," Tirava snapped back. "End of discussion."

Ajax lowered his head, hardwired not to test the limits of his superiors. "At least go back and get a polaron rifle," he pleaded. Holding up his Orion cutlass, he added, "My men and I use melee weapons because they're easier to generate in a portable holomatrix, but you don't need to--"

Tirava considered the broad-bladed fist knife that she held clenched in her hand. "Yes I do, Ajax. Hologram or not, I don't go into a fight more heavily armed than my comrades." This was at best a half-truth. The traditional Andorian _ushaan-tor_ had a symbolic purpose in her people's rite of vengeance. It was implausible to engage the entire Borg Collective, or even a single drone, in a ceremonial duel to the death, but she was resolved to come as close as possible.

Her blood simmered as she prepared herself to turn the corner and lead the attack. With her free hand she counted down the seconds for her troops, who could not experience the shortness of breath she now felt. Tirava pitied the hollow men--they were created to fight, but could never savor the glory. As she finished her countdown and stepped out into the corridor, she vowed to savor it tenfold on their behalf.


	2. Chapter 2

Standard defense protocols in the Collective dictated that an intruding party was irrelevant unless it possessed distinctiveness worthy of assimilation or obstructed normal operations. Even when a threat was recognized under these criteria, the response was a lackadaisical effort to restrain the attacker. A column of Borg simply marched forward, making no effort to resist an opponent except to repel energy discharges with personal deflector grids. This left them highly vulnerable to simplistic armaments, as they operated under the premise that such weapons could not be used while defending against a Borg offensive. However, Starfleet had by now overcome many of the Borg's offensive capabilities while the Collective had stubbornly clung to its dangerously outdated tactics. As a result, the most powerful and fearsome organization in the galaxy were no match for sticks and stones.

True to their nature, the Borg occupying the darkened chamber paid no mind to Tirava and her holographic company. They simply continued to labor at their makeshift generator, in a hopeless bid to restore power to the nearby computer terminals and thereby take control of the _Albatross_. It was only when Tirava drove her blade into the back of a drone's neck that the others finally took notice.

The Borg slowly lurched toward her, and she let them come, standing her ground as she finished off her first victim. Like mosquitoes, they had no deeper strategy than to surround her and launch injection tubules into her body. But Tirava was fully inoculated against the Borg assimilation nanoprobes, and she could afford to allow them into striking distance. It was hardly fair; the Borg took their time trying to assimilate her, whereas she was far less reserved in slashing at their vital organs. More to the point, while they focused their attention on her, they completely dismissed the supposedly "irrelevant" holograms that now began to outflank them. While the drones swarmed over Tirava, they paid no mind to the soldiers swarming themselves, who were far more efficient killers.

In minutes she was totally surrounded, and she reveled in it. Tirava slashed at her enemies wildly, without concern of missing her mark. Now and then a drone would manage to slip through her reach and stab her throat with its tubules, and she would laugh triumphantly. She felt invincible--inured to the greatest weapon of her greatest adversary, free to hack and slash at them without mercy. She thought of the horrors she had survived at the hands of the Borg, and did her best to visit those horrors upon the unfeeling automatons before her.

Within minutes the "battle" was little more than a slaughter, as Ajax and the others pulled away the bloody and broken cyborgs. They found Tirava in the thick of it, drenched in the grayish gore and offal of her enemies.

"Lieutenant!" Ajax shouted over the carnage. "Are you all right?"

" _Of course_ I'm all right!" she snarled. Even the injection sites on her neck had already begun to heal. "What have I got to be concerned about? They're nothing, Sergeant!" She emphasized her point by stomping at a fresh corpse at her feet. "They're nothing, and I've beaten them like they were nothing!"

The holograms said nothing; they knew their place. Ajax motioned for two of them to investigate the terminals the Borg had been attempting to access, and for another pair to confirm that none of the drones had survived.

Tirava's chest heaved as she stared holes through Ajax, who simply stood at attention. "Uzaveh," she gasped. "Uzaveh above, Ajax--if I'd been with you on these hunts it wouldn't have taken three days to exterminate the last of these bastards."

"Yes, sir."

She examined the thin layer of blood on her knife, and began to lick it clean. Noticing Ajax's barely-disguised discomfort, she went on. "You don't really understand war, do you?"

He answered honestly. "I'm programmed with thousands of commentaries on the subject, including Clausewitz, Tomalak, and Kolrami--"

"But you don't know what it _means_ ," she clarified, "to oppose people so fundamentally that you can't help but take satisfaction in killing them." She rose to her full height, and wiped her hands on her sleeves. "So take a good look, Sergeant, because _this_ is war. And it's been too long since I've had the pleasure."

Ajax had no response. At least, not overtly. Instead he tapped his comm-badge and contacted the ship's commanding officer. "Ajax to Kreighen," he announced. "Mission accomplished, no casualties."

"Acknowledged," Kreighen responded over the transmission. "How's Tirava doing?"

"So far she hasn't complained of hearing any Borg cyber-neural traffic," Ajax replied, "so I presume the new neurosuppressants are working, although..."

"Send her up here," the commander ordered. "I want a full report."

Ajax nodded and glanced to the Andorian in question, who was by now carving the heart out of one of the Borg carcasses. "She's on her way now, sir. Ajax out."

Tirava looked back to the hologram and fumed. "You did that on purpose."

"Begging your pardon, Lieutenant," he shrugged, "but I assumed the lesson on war ended when the enemy died. And I don't require a tutorial on savagery."


	3. Chapter 3

There was no "bridge" as such on the _Albatross_ \--the Borg designed their spacecraft with a decentralized approach. So Commander Kreighen awaited Tirava in the chamber that the crew had arbitrarily designated as their command center.

He was surprised to see Tirava caked in blood, although with a moment's thought he realized that he shouldn't have been. When they'd first met, she spoke of the long tradition of warriors in her family, and her eagerness to go out and fight the Borg was clear. Thanks to him, she'd gotten the chance for the past six months, although never in close quarters combat. She had needed this, he decided. He could respect that, even if he didn't comprehend it.

"How'd it go?" he began.

"Perfectly," she answered. "I never heard the Borg's thoughts in my mind, even when they were all at arm's length. If they could hear _my_ thoughts, they certainly didn't use that information to their advantage."

Kreighen nodded in approval. What neither of them would say, or needed to, was that this result was vital to the crew's journey. The remnants of Tirava's link to the Borg Collective had been a severe tactical disadvantage, and as long as the _Albatross_ was so deep inside enemy territory, they would need every edge they could get.

"When we engaged them," Tirava continued, "they were making progress on taking control of the ship. We got lucky this time."

"We get raided by a few dozen drones, it takes three days to clear them out, and we're 'lucky,'" he mused. It had been a long six months. Kreighen had assembled this crew more out of random chance than design, to chase down a damaged Borg cube. The mission succeeded, but his ulterior motives damned his entire team to an unofficial exile. They were sent in the shuttlecraft _Hrunting_ to go deep behind enemy lines and coordinate with the ex-Borg resistance network Unimatrix Zero, which was planning a major offensive to link up with the Federation fleet. By all rights, they should have gotten killed doing that.

But a quirk of fate changed everything--one of Unimatrix Zero's leaders went rogue, and Kreighen commanded the _Hrunting_ on a mission to stop him from fleeing halfway across the galaxy. The shuttle was left stranded thousands of light years from where it started, and barely enough fuel to get back. And yet, in the face of such overwhelming odds, they'd managed to persevere and defeat every Borg ship that had crossed paths with them. "Most people with our luck would be dead ten times over," Kreighen noticed.

"But we're alive, so we have to keep pressing that luck," Tirava said. "We're over a year away from the nearest Federation outpost--that's another year of slogging it out with the Borg in every sector we cross. Eventually the odds will catch up to us, and--"

"I know, I know..." the commander agreed. "We've _got_ to get our hands on a transwarp coil."

"What about the ones we already have? There's the one that came with this ship, and the one we recovered in the last attack--can't Jimenez cobble them together into one that actually works?"

"If we were talking about a warp engine or a subspace radio," Kreighen argued, "I'd say he could do it. But Starfleet's top experts barely understand how transwarp coils work, let alone how to repair them. No, all we can do is get a hold of one that's still in tact, make the jump to transwarp, and get the hell out of Borg space."

"Hmp," the Andorian conceded before changing the subject. "So what's the matter with you?"

He straightened, suddenly self-conscious of his body language. "I don't follow."

"You're anxious, Commander, and you don't hide it very well. Not from me." She stopped to look at her bloody uniform. "Oh...I forget sometimes how squeamish humans can be..."

"It's not that...exactly," Kreighen sighed. "This isn't a good time--"

"For what?" she demanded. "Did sensors detect trouble along our course? Or is this some human ethical dilemma about the way I killed those drones?"

He rolled his eyes--he'd come to quickly recognize Tirava's impatience, and when not to challenge it. "Look...you know the holo-array Ijhel's been working on down in section 139?"

"What about it?"

"She's been unit testing with a simulation of Lake Cataria on Betazed," he went on. "It's really very nice--and I was...thinking...I could and show you around..."

Tirava's iron will faltered, but only for a moment. "You're asking me out on a date," she finally responded, as coldly as an Andorian wind.

He shrank back from this, but again only momentarily. He was Lieutenant Commander Jacob Angus Kreighen, a veteran of two wars, and he'd destroyed more Borg starships than Picard and Janeway put together. He had _not_ traveled across the galaxy to let a beautiful alien woman make him feel like an eighth-grader. "Yes," he said, standing his ground. "Yes, I suppose I am."

Her antenna wavered in his direction, but her eyes would have none of it. "I...don't think that would be a good idea."

"Then maybe we should talk about why."

"Perhaps," she mumbled. They stood there, non-staring at one another across the bridge, for what felt like an hour. "But not on Betazed. And not today..."

To Kreighen's amazement, the blue-skinned amazon practically _scurried_ for the nearest corridor, and he suddenly had a deeper appreciation for Stacy Vogel's point of view that day in trigonometry. "Tirava!" he thundered. "I'm tired of avoiding this! We have to sort it out..."

This visibly alerted her to the possibility that she was showing the slightest vulnerability, and she turned to stab a finger in his direction. "There's nothing to sort out, Commander! I've been a clear as I can be. Now, _with your permission, sir_ , I don't have time for this nonsense. I..." She struggled for her next sentence until she once again recalled the smell of the bloodstain on her cheeks. "I have to wash my hair."


	4. Chapter 4

Betazed had seen better days. In 2386 it was a lush paradise, a shining jewel in the United Federation of Planets. But Utana Ijhel had developed the architecture of her holoprogram from sensor data archived by her native Cardassia, and most of the imaging the Cardassians had of Betazed was recorded in 2374, when they had invaded it.

That was fine with Kreighen. He'd only been to Lake Cataria once, after the planet had been re-captured near the end of the Dominion War, on his way to the front lines. It was exactly as he remembered it, right down to the calm crystal water reflecting the deep green glow of plasma fires burning in the distance. There was something soothing about it to him, this placid scene amidst the heat of war (although he could imagine this opinion would be unpopular among the Betazoids).

As he strolled through the simulation's shore line, he noticed the only thing missing was other people. Not that he didn't value the solitude, but it was difficult to imagine a whole stretch of the lake being deserted, even under a military occupation. And so when he finally caught sight of someone coming from the other direction, he couldn't help but intercept them.

It was a Cardassian woman, and a rather attractive one at that, barefoot and wearing that culture's equivalent of a purple cocktail dress. He began to wonder just what sort of program Ijhel had been working on, but the look in the woman's eyes disarmed him. "Nice evening," he declared when they met.

"I suppose it is if you can stand the cold," she scoffed. 

"Oh, come on," Kreighen countered. "It has to be 20C out--that's plenty warm, even by Cardassian standards..."

"And I suppose you're an exobiologist," the woman fussed, "here to tell me what my species can and can't tolerate."

The commander rolled his eyes. "Yeah, look, lady, I don't need to take this from--" Then it dawned on him. "Oh lord, you're trying to court me, aren't you?"

She was aghast. " _I beg your pardon?_ I can assure you, Lieutenant, or Lieutenant Commander, or whatever you are, the very idea of fraternizing with a human is--"

Kreighen simply shook his head and slapped his commbadge. "Kreighen to Ijhel--shut this damn thing off."

He expected the entire program to go offline, and leave him inside the sparse walls of Ijhel's jury-rigged holodeck. Instead the imaginary woman simply disappeared, and two very real people suddenly materialized to his left--Doctor Ijhel and Ensign Jimenez. "I told you he wouldn't like it," Jimenez chided her.

"But it was a perfect opportunity to monitor the AI algorithms _and_ the 'duck blind' masking in objective mode," Ijhel insisted. "Rest assured, gentlemen, this was time well spent."

"Why are you programming holo-women to seduce me, Doctor?" Kreighen asked flatly.

Ijhel barely paused to look up from her datapad to respond. "The _pertinent_ question, my dear commander, is why she _failed_. But we are making progress--when I tried her on Nathan three hours ago, she decided to walk to the bottom of the lake."

Jimenez shrugged. "Yeah, I have that effect on women."

"Yes, the curiously human talent for ironic self-deprecation!" she noted excitedly. "That's exactly the sort of trait she'll need to be able to appreciate..."

Kreighen rested a hand on her shoulder. " _Doctor_. The lake is perfect. Why are you programming it like a Ferengi sex game?"

"To be blunt, Commander, we've a long trip ahead of us, and I was anticipating future...requests from the crew. Perhaps a woman of your own species would be more effective..."

He could see she wasn't going to let this drop. "There was nothing wrong with her, Utana, but she was arguing with me the minute she saw me--"

"Ah, I see now," she explained. "That's how Cardassians--"

"I _know_ how Cardassians make love," Kreighen insisted. "Even taking that into account, she was all but throwing herself at my feet. I guess that's direct and to the point, but it's not very romantic, at least by human standards."

"Really?" Ijhel blinked incredulously. Holding her tablet up to take notes, she asked, "Then what is?"

He sighed exchanged a knowing glance with Jimenez. "I'll, uh, have to get back to you on that, Doctor. Ajax has finished going through whatever the Borg were doing with the computers--he's up on the bridge right now, I need you go help him sort through the data."

She wrinkled her nose in disgust. "Honestly, Commander, I'm better suited to this work. You're standing in the middle of an epic saga I've written, sending me away to scribble nursery rhymes. Jimenez could do that just as well as I." Turning to the engineer, she added, "No offense, of course."

"I've got other work for Nathan, Doctor," Kreighen pressed. "Besides, if it's so far beneath you, then it shouldn't take that long."

"True," Ijhel admitted. "I'll be back within the hour--count on it."

Once she was out the door, Jimenez breathed a sigh of relief. "I don't care if she writes sagas or dirty limericks," he groaned. " _I'm_ the poor chump that has to get the printing press set _just so_."

"Give her a little slack, Nathan," the commander replied. "Utana's never really had a purpose in this crew, except to keep the hollow men working, and they weren't designed to need much maintenance in the first place. I can only imagine how crazy I'd get hanging around a bunch of programmers at Jupiter Station with nowhere to fly but running escort missions. She needs this."

Admiring the beach, Jimenez had to admit, "Maybe we all do. But right now I'll settle for a break from 'Gul Ijhel.' What's this job you've got for me?"

Kreighen smirked. "I don't think you're gonna like it much better. What do you know about women, kid?"

The ensign grimaced, and couldn't help shifting his gaze to the lake. "The ones _above_ sea level?"


	5. Chapter 5

"The thing is," Jimenez began, "I grew up with five sisters, and from about the sixth grade until I joined Starfleet every guy in the Bronx would come up and ask me about one of them. I wasn't a lot of help."

Kreighen chuckled. "Yeah, I learned a long time ago not to ask a guy about his sister..."

"It wasn't _that_ \--I just...I'm not exactly great with...with social stuff, you know?"

"I'd noticed."

"I'm an engineer," Jimenez explained. "I spent every Friday night trying to disassemble the replicator or cross-connect it to the waste reclamation unit."

"Well, you said you dated a Vulcan woman at the Academy," Kreighen offered.

"Huh? Oh--that--that was all her idea. Her _ponn farr_ was coming up, and she decided spending it with me was more 'logical' than skipping a year of classes to go home and start a family." The ensign thought back to that semester and laughed awkwardly. "By the time it ended I barely knew what hit me."

"Look, Nathan, none of us can be Don Juan. But you're the only man I know within a thousand light years that isn't a hologram, and I'm _sure_ not talking to Ajax about women. Like it or not, you've got the job." When he could see he would get no further argument, Kreighen laid all his cards on the table. "It's about Tirava."

"Yeah, I guess that figures."

"Well, look," the commander rambled, "I don't know what she's told you...about us. But I thought we had something, you know? Lately I keep thinking I can get it back."

Jimenez was puzzled. "I didn't think you'd known her more than day or two before we all went on that first mission together."

Kreighen flashed an embarrassed smile. "I got to know her pretty well."

"Ohhhhhh..." Everything fell together for the young engineer, because he was there for most of what happened next. The Borg launched an attack on the outpost they were stationed at, and Kreighen and Tirava hijacked a shuttlecraft Jimenez had been repairing. The same shuttlecraft, in fact, that Ijhel had been in the middle of hijacking to keep her holoprogramming from being lost in the battle. Kreighen ordered the entire band behind enemy lines, but his motives shifted as the mission proceeded. At first he just wanted to track down a damaged cube that he could capture and tow back for Starfleet to study for weaknesses. Then it became clear he had a personal vendetta with the cube, which had destroyed his old ship. _Then_ it seemed that he was hoping to find POWs from that earlier battle, specifically a lover he passionately embraced when he found her. 

Finally it became clear that Kreighen had never met that woman before in his life--the entire operation had been a ruse, to deliberately get himself court-martialed. He'd hoped the whole affair would draw attention to Admiral Janeway's mishandling of the war. Janeway solved that problem by reassigning Kreighen and his cohorts into Borg space (officially a secret mission, unofficially a suicide run), and now here they were. All of them had blamed the commander for their plight, but circumstances had forced them to work out their differences. Only now did Jimenez realize that some differences ran a little deeper than he'd thought.

"Geez, Jake, you don't just have a one night stand with an Andorian..."

"It _wasn't_ a one night stand!" Kreighen snapped. "I mean, I don't know what it was..."

"It's up to Tirava what it meant," Jimenez argued. "That's the Andorian point of view, anyway--the men are considered equals in everything but courtship."

"Well, I didn't know that, okay?" The commander gestured to a nearby bench in the Lake Cataria program, and they began to walk toward it. "Things happened pretty fast. It's war--we were both alone with nothing useful to do at D-19, I wasn't even sure we'd see each other again. When I acted like I had a girlfriend among those POWs we saved, I was trying to protect her--all of you--from getting dragged down with me when I confronted Janeway."

"I don't understand--it sounds like you never meant for the relationship to continue."

"I didn't!"

"Then you got what you wanted," Jimenez observed. "What's the problem?"

This point blindsided Kreighen, and he sat at the bench to gather his thoughts. "I just...I thought she and I would go our separate ways, and I wanted her to forget me. But now we serve together on the same ship--for all intents and purposes she's my first officer! And I...I...just want to make things right. I tried talking to her about it earlier today, and she pushed me away."

Jimenez propped his foot up on the bench and mulled it over. "Couldn't you just order her to stop and listen?"

"What?"

"You _said_ she's your first officer. She has to do what you tell her, right?"

"I can think of about a dozen reasons why that would be very bad, Nathan."

"Look." Jimenez stood back on both feet and straightened his uniform. "You're the one who slept with an Andorian, then led her to believe you had another girl, then let her find out you were lying, and now you want to make up with her. I don't have any idea how to deal with that because I barely understand how it happened. What I _do_ know is that when somebody in red with more pips than you tells you to do something, you shut up and do it. That's pretty much the only reason I'm in middle of Borg space giving anybody advice about women. It should at least be enough to get Tirava to listen to what you have to say."

"It still doesn't sound very ethical," Kreighen protested.

"If I thought that would stop you, Jake, I wouldn't have brought it up."


	6. Chapter 6

Although Doctor Ijhel didn't have the training necessary operate the _Albatross_ , in a sense she carried her weight by developing holo-soldiers that did. As she labored over the Borg data nodes recovered from the last of the intruders, Sergeant Ajax commanded the bridge; Corporals Benkei, Horatius, and Saam manned other stations around him.

Despite Ijhel's Cardassian talent for conversation, there was little discourse on the bridge. Unlike her shipmates, she saw the hollow men as little more than software, and the holograms themselves were designed to agree with that assessment. But her work had built upon the fundamental code of other developers, and so the soldiers had many features that did not agree with her; most notably, they only took orders from Starfleet officers, not the civilian who created them. Thus, they had as little reason to speak with her as she with them.

This changed when Ijhel finally found something of significance in one of the data nodes. "Mister Saam," she announced, glancing to the ops station. "I'm transferring some coordinates to you--can you confirm they describe a position within sensor range?"

The corporal gave her a blank stare. "I'm Corporal Horatius, Doctor."

Ijhel curled her lip. The hollow men were all instances of the original prototype, Ajax--aside from his sergeant's stripes, they were all identical. "And how, pray tell, am I supposed to know that?"

"The duty roster was entered into the ship's logs..." Horatius explained.

"Something troubling you, Doctor?" Ajax interjected.

"Why yes," she groaned. "Apparently Starfleet protocol requires me to be on a first-name basis with the equipment before I can make use of it."

"We can't coordinate ship's operations if we don't know who's doing what," Ajax explained, as if quoting from the manuals built into his psyche. "If you want something done you need to know who you're asking."

"Fine," she huffed. " _Sergeant Ajax_ , would you mind terribly if one of your crewmen cross-checked these coordinates?"

"I have command of the bridge," he patiently explained. "I give the orders, I don't delegate them on your behalf. You need to take it up with the acting executive officer."

"Well, I don't read your precious duty logs," Ijhel seethed. "I don't even know where you store them, so how should I know which one of them is the acting executive officer?"

"For this watch, it's Corporal Benkei," Ajax clarified.

"I CAN'T TELL THEM APART!"

"That wasn't my idea," the sergeant retorted. "I'm a soldier, not a programmer."

"Sir," Horatius interrupted before Ijhel could scream, "Picking up subspace distortions ahead port, bearing three one seven mark two eight four..."

"Confirmed," Saam reported from the helm. "The pattern is consistent with the ion trail of a starship, although its course appears to have been erratic."

"Tactical analysis?" Ajax asked.

Benkei had by now processed the findings at his station. "The trail indicates the ship had a mass consistent with a Borg sphere," he concluded. "But the power output would have been much weaker..."

"It could have been damaged," Saam speculated.

Ijhel turned her head back and forth, trying to follow the conversation like a springball match. "Wait...wait...you're all talking about the phenomenon I wanted you to look at in the first place! The Borg were scanning that ion trail!"

Ajax ignored her. "Scan for signs of Species 10538 activity in the area. If a Borg ship was damaged nearby, we can't afford to be ambushed by whatever might have damaged it."

"Nothing on long-range sensors," Benkei reported. "It's possible the sphere could have been crippled by natural phenomena, such as a magnetic storm..."

The Cardassian stamped her foot. "That will be quite enough, all of you! Stop talking about this as if I wasn't here, discovering it five minutes before any of you!"

"The trail continues for another fifteen light years," Saam announced. "Terminating somewhere within a planetary nebula."

"Exactly!" Ijhel exclaimed. "It's most likely still there, and unless the Borg have assimilated too many Starfleet explorers, it's unlikely they're poking around admiring the view. This is a pristine opportunity to--"

"We have to find out if their transwarp coil is operational," Ajax decided. "Helm, plot a course for the nebula. Mister Horatius, continue long-range scans--we may not be the only ones interested in locating that ship. Benkei, summon all senior officers to the bridge."

"There are only three of them," Ijhel grumbled, knowing no one was listening. "And I'd hardly call Ensign Jimenez a senior anything..."

"Attention, all senior officers," Benkei announced over the comm line. "Please report to the bridge."

"Bridge," came a response. "This is Kreighen, report."

"Sorry to disturb you, Commander, but Corporal Horatius has discovered what could be a damaged or derelict Borg ship."

Ijhel was livid. " _He_ discovered!?"

"No apologies necessary," Kreighen replied. "I'm on my way, Benkei."

Ijhel plopped back down into her seat and sulked. As she went back into the data nodes, she idly wondered how difficult it would be to give her creations the capacity to feel pain.


	7. Chapter 7

The planetary nebula stretched across three light years, filling the viewscreens in the _Albatross_ bridge with a brilliant display of illuminated stardust. At the heart of the cloud, barely visible beneath the dense fog of gas, was a tiny star, no larger than Earth, but far denser and brighter than Earth's sun.

Of all the crew, Commander Kreighen was particularly excited by this discovery. He'd spent too much of his Starfleet career fighting battles, and far too little exploring sights like this one. "Analysis, Mr. Horatius."

"Incomplete, sir," the hologram explained. "Sensors are only barely able to cut through the irradiated flotsam emanating from the nebula. The star is a G-type white dwarf, approximately twelve billion years old."

"What about the Borg?" Tirava asked, a tacit reminder of the primary objective.

Corporal Saam answered from the helm. "The ion trail is erratic, as though the ship had lost finer attitude control, but it continues along a straight path directly into the star."

"Like a moth to a flame," Jimenez mused.

Kreighen walked up for a closer look at Saam's readings. "Or maybe like a boat to a lighthouse. The Borg couldn't see through this pea soup any more than we can, but they knew where the star was and used that to guide them in."

"In to what?" Tirava countered. "A Borg maintenance facility?"

"Perhaps nothing so convenient, Lieutenant," Ijhel observed. "Imagine our ship was so heavily damaged that we could barely navigate. We might well decide to set down on a planet for repairs, and since there are no obvious candidates in this sector, we would naturally go poking around in that nebula, looking for one."

Jimenez came to a stunning realization. "For all we know, they could be like us--a Borg ship commandeered by non-Borg, like Unimatrix Zero or the Alyseans. They'd have even more of a reason to take cover in the stellar gasses."

"Only one way to find out," Kreighen concluded. "Helm, take us into the heliosphere, full impulse. Tirava, take over on tactical--keep an eye out for any disturbances in the dust formations that could be the wake of a starship. Horatius, identify the habitable zone for class-M environments in this system. The Borg more or less prefer the same atmosphere and climate we do."

Jimenez stepped over to the commander with a word of advice. "Jake, that white dwarf is what's left of a red giant, thirty thousand times its current size. Chances are the habitable zone was incinerated a billion years ago."

"That thought had occurred to me," Kreighen admitted. "But this nebula is right in the middle of the Collective's backyard--they've had years to chart it, and there's a decent chance they came here because they knew what they'd find."

Tirava spoke up from tactical. "Commander, I'm picking up eddies in the stellar wind, consistent with a large object traveling at full impulse."

"Any sign of a course change?"

"It's not as clear as the ion trail, but...yes, bearing oh-three-one mark oh-oh-four."

"There's a gravitational distortion along that course," Horatius revealed. "Sensors can't make it out, but it's almost certainly a gas giant, possibly Class J."

Kreighen snapped his fingers. "Gotcha. Saam, set course for that distortion, and slow to one-half impulse--I want to creep up on them so we get a good look. I think it's safe to assume that's a 'Jupiter' sitting out there, so that won't do our friends any good if they want a place to land. Scan for large moons--anything big enough to have an atmosphere is worth a look."

"I take it that 'Jupiter' is one of the planets in the Terran system?" Ijhel asked him.

"The largest," the commander confirmed. "It's about five times as far from our sun as Earth, and just like this planet it's far enough out to survive a red giant. If I'm right, this system's habitable zone isn't gone, it's just been pushed back."

The Cardassian's face paled at the thought. "That...doesn't sound very hospitable, even to the Borg..."

Kreighen smiled. "Don't worry, Utana, I didn't plan on assigning you to the salvage operation. Nathan and Tirava will be going with me."

Tirava's antennae jumped at this, and she quickly lodged her objection. "Commander, we'll need Jimenez's skills and I'm suited to the cold, but your place is here."

"I have to agree," Sergeant Ajax said. "Starfleet regulations expressly forbid sending both the captain and the first officer into an unknown environment."

"Lucky for me, I'm not a captain," Kreighen shrugged. "I've been cooped up in one ship or another for six months, I've never visited a jovian moon in a nebula before, I'm going." With a telling glance to Jimenez, he added, "Besides, if I thought regulations would stop me, I wouldn't have brought it up."


	8. Chapter 8

When the _Albatross_ crew finally located the landing site of their quarry, it was indeed too cold for Ijhel's taste. Still, it was not nearly as frigid as might be expected one billion kilometers from such a tiny star. The J-class gas giant had yielded a variety of moons, the most hospitable of which registered as Class L--too arduous for a permanent settlement, but close enough to Earth-like conditions for humanoid survival. The various "bread crumbs" they had followed into the nebula led straight to this moon, the only port in the proverbial storm.

The moon's relatively balmy temperature appeared to be a result of its dense atmosphere, which also made sensors and transporters useless from orbit. To investigate the fate (or, if nothing else, the existence) of the mysterious Borg ship, the away team set out in the _Hrunting_ , the combat shuttle that had brought them this far into the Collective's territory. As the shuttle penetrated beyond the tropopause, its computers and sensors suddenly flashed and beeped to life, finally free of the interference caused by both the nebula and the atmospheric sheath.

" _Hrunting_ to _Albatross_ ," Commander Kreighen hailed as he attempted to establish communications with the mothership. " _Albatross_ , do you read?" He glanced back to Jimenez from the cockpit. "Try a lower frequency--boost the power if you have to."

The ensign complied and was met with an incoming signal. "Looks like they thought of it first."

Sergeant Ajax's voice could be heard crackling over the transmission. " _Hrunting_......jax, come in......lower EM band..."

"Stay with me, Ajax," Kreighen replied, "we're getting there."

"Lost you on sens........sphere contains high levels.......droxyls......rely on you for surface data."

"Understood, _Albatross_ ," Kreighen said, stretching the truth only slightly. "No sign of Borg power signatures. If they're down here, their lights are out."

"If that's true," Tirava suggested, "we'd do better to scan for the raw material of their ship. Not much chance of a million tons of tritanium occurring naturally in a place like this."

"Do it," Kreighen answered. "Ajax, I'm more and more sure that when we find them, we won't get much of a fight. We'll touch base every thirty minutes to keep you updated. _Hrunting_ out."

"Surface temperature is 8C," Jimenez reported. "No oceans, but judging from the vegetation there's enough water for a stable ecosystem. No clear indication of fauna so far."

"Strange," Tirava wondered. "This moon is more temperate than Andoria, while receiving half as much heat from its star."

"Yeah, but for a couple billion years that star was a red giant," Kreighen observed. "It could have easily had a Class-M climate until the nebula formed. After that it probably would have turned into a giant ice ball, if it weren't for the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere." As he piloted the shuttle across the rocky steppes in a standard search pattern, he had a realization. "You know, Nathan, you might have been on to something. Everything about this place makes it the perfect base for Unimatrix Zero."

"But they're three thousand light years from here," Tirava argued.

"General Korok's cell is, yeah. But the Zeroes were all over the galaxy when they were freed from the Collective. A small band of them could've found themselves stuck in this sector, like we are, and this moon would have been the closest thing to safe haven. The Borg can't detect anything on the surface, and there's nothing around here that would make them bother with a second look..."

"Got it," Tirava interrupted. "Reading massive quantities of tritanium nineteen kilometers to the northwest. I recommend we cloak, Commander."

"I'm not sure I see the point," he replied. "We still aren't picking up any power signatures, let alone life signs--"

"Damn it, Kreighen," she spat. "I am _not_ going to give the Borg a free shot at me just because _you_ want to play spaceman." There was a stunned silence for the next two seconds, during which time no one worked up the nerve to contradict her reasoning. "Engaging cloak," she continued, as if permission had been granted.

"All right then," the commander sighed. "Our ship is just beyond those hills, we should have visual confirmation in about ten seconds."

As the _Hrunting_ passed over the hills, the away team found a large clearing filled with thick moss and ferns. A tremendous rift had been gouged into the plain, stretching for another five kilometers, finally leading to a Borg sphere. Or, rather, what was left of a sphere--it was surrounded by wreckage torn from its outer hull, and partially submerged in a vast peat bog. The familiarly eerie glow of Borg starships was totally absent--no sign of activity, no sign of survivors.

"So, Commodore..." Kreighen turned to his insubordinate lieutenant with a peculiarly smug expression. "Should we go to yellow alert, or straight to red?"


	9. Chapter 9

When Jimenez finally reached the sphere's transwarp coil, he wasted no time unpacking the equipment needed to salvage the component. The ship's interior was pitch black, without a trace of power or access to daylight. Although there was no evidence of any Borg drones on the entire moon, the young engineer's nerves weren't about to let him take any chances. He hastily set up three pattern enhancement pylons around the coil, and then set about the awkward task of uninstalling the device, with only the glow of a wrist-mounted spotlight to guide him.

As he worked frantically in the darkness, he heard footsteps in the corridors behind him. Jimenez knew it had to be Kreighen or Tirava--the pace of the footfalls was too quick for a lumbering drone--but his heart raced all the same. His instincts begged him to shine the light towards the sounds to disprove his fears, but his mind was just as intimidated, and knew that the anxiety would end sooner if he focused on his work and finished the job sooner. 

"That you, Nathan?" The sound of Kreighen's voice was like a knife dropped on the marble floor of a mausoleum, but at least the wondering was over.

"It _was_ ," he answered wryly. "Did you find anybody aboard?"

"Not a soul, although I didn't check the decks that sank in the bog. Judging from the moss I'd say this thing's been sitting here around six weeks, so if there are any survivors they've been playing possum for a long time. For all we know, something killed the whole crew, and their Borg implants automatically vaporized them." It was a touchy subject for the commander--he'd exploited that termination protocol to commandeer the _Albatross_ , killing thousands of drones in one stroke--but he knew it could just as easily happen by accident.

"And then what? The sphere just happened to blunder its way to the only breathable atmosphere in the sector?"

"I'll get you some answers, Ensign," Kreighen assured him. "But right now all I'm concerned with is that transwarp coil."

Jimenez nodded and returned is focus to his hyperspanner. "Well, I can't be sure till we hook it up to a power source," he reported, "but it looks to be in a lot better shape than the first two we acquired."

"Good." Kreighen tread carefully around the chamber, calibrating each of the pattern enhancers to emit a thin blue beam that formed a perimeter around Jimenez and the coil. "As soon as you've got that thing loose, I want you to beam it back to the shuttle and take it to the _Albatross_. After you get it working, you can come back and pick us up."

Jimenez started to object, but he had an idea where the commander was going with this. "A Borg derelict sitting in the middle of rotting slime is a long way from Lake Cataria," he observed. "Just what do you plan on doing until I get back?"

The commander's brow furrowed as he considered the task ahead of him. "Getting some answers." He wasn't talking about the Borg.

"What sort of answers?" Tirava emerged from the blackness, her arms loaded with all the data nodes she could carry.

Jimenez didn't like the surprise any more the second time around, although Kreighen was clearly the more rattled of the two. "I didn't even hear you coming..."

"That's the idea," she scoffed. "Now, if you're planning to investigate whether we can cannibalize this ship for parts, don't bother. From what I can tell, the entire power distribution network is fried--even the regeneration alcoves are fried. The only things of any value I could find were their sensor logs."

"Give them to Nathan, Ijhel can go over them while he's installing the coil."

"That won't be necessary," Tirava offered. "I'll do it."

"You're with me, Lieutenant, and we're staying here."

" _Why?_ There's nothing left here to investigate."

"Because we're standing on an L-class moon in a planetary nebula, and we're the first Federation citizens to ever arrive here, and in a couple of hours we'll be gone and nobody will likely every come back. Because I want to know how this ship got here without a crew, and there's a fair chance the sensors won't tell me anything. Because I'm a _spaceman_ , and I'm not going to stop exploring strange new worlds just because you don't like me very much." With that, Kreighen reached over to relieve Tirava of her armful of data nodes.

The Andorian's antennae sprang to life, and that was the only warning anyone would get. Without a second thought, she dropped all thirteen of the nodes to capture Kreighen's wrist as soon as it was in reach. The distraction of the components clattering on the deckplate allowed her to catch him totally off guard, and she pulled him into an effortless wristlock takedown. When she had him pinned to the ground in a knee mount, she cocked back her palm and aimed it directly at his face. "You," she hissed, "do not _touch_ me."

He struggled to speak with her left arm against his throat. "Th-then carry out my orders...hk...or kill me."

She took his point; those were the only real options. As she rose to her feet, she made a point of doing so as roughly as possible for Kreighen, and then as he recovered she used her foot to shove the data nodes inside of the pattern enhancer perimeter. "You heard the man," she muttered to Jimenez.

The ensign stopped being frozen long enough to be petrified, and looked down at Commander Kreighen. "Jake?"

Kreighen sat up coughing, and was too busy catching his breath to speak. He simply waved Jimenez off, to indicate that there was nothing to worry about.

Uneasily, the engineer pressed his comm-badge. "Jimenez to _Hrunting_. Lock transporters onto my signal, and energize." Standing within the perimeter, he was caught by a transporter beam that encompassed everything between the pylons, and shimmered into energy. As he faded away, he looked at Kreighen and Tirava, and wondered if he wasn't seeing one of them for the last time.


	10. Chapter 10

Jimenez had been right--the endless moors on this moon were a poor alternative to Lake Cataria. The air was cold and carried the stench of rotting leaves, the ground was muddy and putrid, and the sky was filled with a dismal haze. Commander Kreighen didn't care--he'd spent months cooped up in starships, space stations, and shuttlecrafts, and it was powerfully refreshing to breathe real, open air. As he studied the clouds overhead, he wondered if it might rain today. It had probably been years since he'd been caught in the rain.

"I still don't read any animal life," he announced as he adjusted his tricorder. "I'd compare the biosphere to Earth before the first invertebrates migrated inland from the sea...roughly the Silurian Period...but since there's no seas here to speak of I'm not sure Hodgkin's Law of Parallel Planetary Development even applies..."

As they hiked through the marsh, Tirava said nothing, and simply stared daggers at him. Kreighen couldn't be bothered by it; he was helplessly rejuvenated by the chance to conduct real _science_. That was, after all, Starfleet's primary mission; waging war in defense of the Federation was not why he'd signed up for the Academy. Journeying to new worlds and the mundane tasks required therein--including soil samples and topological surveys--was his higher calling.

Still, he had deeper reasons for this away mission, and he couldn't put them off. "Look...we need to talk, Tirava."

"Is that an order, Commander?"

"That depends," he retorted, "on which answer keeps you from breaking my nose."

Instantly she became far more interested in her tricorder readings. "There is residue of bioelectric fields in the area--some complex life form has been here other than us, possibly survivors from the crash."

"Tirava."

"All right, all right!" she fumed. "I...apologize for my misconduct."

"Well, my uniform accepts your apology," Kreighen grumbled. "But you and I have bigger things to sort out."

"Your uniform is the only reason I owe you an apology. There really isn't anything left to sort out."

"So explain it to me, and then we'll both understand."

"I did!" she snapped. "Months ago."

He slammed his tricorder shut and confronted her. "The hell you did! All you ever told me is that you've staked a claim to me like I'm a piece of real estate, or a plaything in your harem of one."

"That's enough by Andorian standards."

"OK, set aside that I'm _not Andorian_ and we're nowhere near Andoria. You didn't want me fooling around with other women, or even giving the _appearance_ of it, because it would bring dishonor to you, right? Right. I get _that_. What I don't understand is how someone can be so concerned about her proprietary rights and so scornful toward her 'property' at the same time."

"Mind your tone," she scowled, and walked off.

"This is what I'm talking about!" He hurried ahead to cut her off. "You act like you can't stand me, but the only reason you've ever given is that I belong to you. If you're so dissatisfied with the merchandise, why don't you just cut your losses?"

"Maybe I don't base my decisions on what's most convenient for you!"

"For either of us! You'd have been better off leaving the galaxy with the Alyseans we met last month, and I'd have thought you'd jump at the chance! But no, you decided to stick with me, and I guess you just decided you'd rather be miserable than gamble that I might sleep around behind your back."

She crossed her arms and grimaced. "Oh, I think we both know that'd be a safe bet..."

"Now what the hell is _that_ supposed to--!"

Before he could finish his sentence, Tirava was leaping onto him, wrestling him to the ground yet again. This time, however, it wasn't anything Kreighen had said--he could hear an energy blast streak by as she shoved him out of harm's way. A second and third blast soon followed.

"It's some kind of phase pulse weapon!" she exclaimed. Having hefted Kreighen back to his feet, she drew her sidearm and returned fire. Starfleet hadn't used phase pulse weapons in over two hundred years, and her hand phaser was undoubtedly the superior weapon. But the mysterious sniper had the high ground and a better view of his enemy--even armed with a musket, he'd have the advantage. 

Tirava and Kreighen quickly sought cover, and found that the moon's vegetation featured little in the way of trees or large ferns. There was no option except to make a run for the nearest hill, and they both knew it. With no more than a nod exchanged between them, Kreighen drew his own weapon and laid down suppression fire while she began the withdrawal; as soon as he heard her begin firing, he raced to join her.

As he traded places with Tirava again, and resumed fire, the Commander slapped his commbadge. There wasn't much chance the tiny device would cut through the moon's atmosphere, but there was no time to unpack the stronger subspace transceiver in his gear. "Kreighen to _Hrunting_ , emergency beam-out! Kreighen to _Albatross_! _Albatross_ , come in!"


	11. Chapter 11

> Ship's Log, Stardate 63514.1. Military Assault Hologram Sergeant Ajax reporting.
> 
> Ensign Jimenez has brought the _Hrunting_ back with a Borg transwarp coil, which he recovered from the surface of our newly-discovered Class L moon. I remain in command while the ensign installs the device, which will allow the _Albatross_ to create a temporary transwarp conduit to escape Borg space.
> 
> Lieutenant Commander Kreighen and Lieutenant junior grade Tirava remain on the surface to investigate the fate of the Borg crew. They were to contact us every half hour to appraise us of their situation; however they have now missed their third scheduled transmission. I hereby note in this log my official protest of Commander Kreighen's violation of Starfleet Regulations Section 12, Paragraph 4 by undertaking this away mission while serving as commanding officer. However, my programming prevents me from taking more concrete actions to rectify this tactical oversight. As per Ensign Jimenez, my orders are to remain in orbit and to dispatch no new missions to the surface until the transwarp coil is installed.

"It's a rather dry log entry, don't you think?"

Ajax raised an eyebrow and turned to Doctor Ijhel, currently twiddling her thumbs at a computer station on the bridge. "I'm a soldier, not a storyteller."

"Oh, I know better than to accept that distinction," she countered. "Who do you think compiled all the captain's logs in your databanks? I found Picard's records particularly...dramatic."

"I suppose you could do better?"

"You should," she grinned, "but then Cardassians do have a gift for oratory. I requisitioned Legate Damar's logs for inclusion in your program, but Starfleet would have none of it--I suppose the history of Federation-Cardassian relations justifies that decision. Nevertheless, I think you'd be impressed with my own documentation in your matrix's man pages."

Ajax rolled his eyes; the opportunity to experience Ijhel's writing was no more alluring than the chance to listen to her speak. "Don't you have work to do, Doctor?"

"Frankly, no. As I see it, Ensign Jimenez will have the transwarp coil ready within the hour, the others will be back aboard not long after that, and we'll be back in Federation-controlled territory tonight. At that point, I highly doubt any of us will have much business aboard this ship, let alone my makeshift holosuite."

His severe expression softened. "I hadn't considered that. I suppose Starfleet will take possession of my program, and deploy us on the front lines."

"Hopefully so--I hate for my work to go unused." She averted her gaze and seemed to choose her next words carefully. "But I...tend to linger over a project before it ships. Admire my handiwork, before I chase it from the nest like a mother vole. You are my crowning achievement, after all."

Ajax found himself speechless for a moment. "It's been...ah...it's been an honor serving with you, Doctor."

She tried to shrug it off. "Well, as I come to think about it, I could be using this time more constructively. Perhaps I'll develop a module to add some flourish to your log entries..."

"Actually, Doctor," Ajax mumbled, "I think you might be needed he--"

"Sir," Corporal Benkei reported from tactical. "Reading a displacement of gases in the nebula."

Ajax snapped back to his duties. "Another ship?"

"My readings are inconclusive," Benkei answered, "but it's either a very small asteroid or a very big ship, headed this way."

"Bridge to Jimenez," Ajax hailed. "Ensign, we may have company. What's your status?"

"I've got the coil online," the engineer responded. "But we'll need to run a few tests before we can use it--"

The entire ship was rocked, and though the hollow men were unfazed Ijhel nearly fell from her chair. "I don't think we'll have time, Ensign," she quipped.

Ajax stood his ground. "Leave orbit, and initiate evasive maneuvers," he ordered Corporal Saam at the helm. "And try to get us close enough to see what we're dealing with."

Saam piloted the _Albatross_ away from the moon, and the haze of ionized particles from the nebula only clouded the sensors further. He weaved the ship in the opposite direction of the incoming fire, until it was clear the attacker was in pursuit. From there he executed an Immelman turn, yawing sharply until the ship was out of the line of fire, and then circling backward to get behind the enemy.

"Fire all weapons," Ajax ordered. "Configure a jammer pulse to disrupt their neural interlink frequencies, and remodulate shield grids to counter their weapons." As the _Albatross_ moved in for its counterattack, the sergeant finally saw what he was up against--one of the Borg's most powerful starships, an armored Class 4 tactical cube. "Strange," he pondered. "Why are they attacking us?"

"Because _we're at war?_ " Ijhel suggested with heavy sarcasm.

"The Collective built this ship _and_ that one, Doctor," Ajax rebutted. "We have the same sensor capabilities they do, which means they opened fire on something they hadn't identified. The Borg _never_ do that."

Another volley slammed into the _Albatross_ , blacking out the ship's systems momentarily and sending the ship careening through space. Ijhel was literally hurled from her seat, only to be caught by the steady arms of her "crowning achievement." Hyperventilating, she held on to the sergeant for dear life and offered a suggestion. "Maybe you should tell them they're going off-script!"

Ajax's instincts were to put the woman down and go about his duties, but something about the rattled look in Ijhel's eyes made him think better of it. It made no difference; he could command the ship either way. "Damage report!"

One by one, the instances of his matrix each reported from their stations. "Helm control is gone!"

"Primary shield grids are offline, switching the secondary--"

"We have a cascade overload in the power distribution nodes--"

The sergeant took it all in, but he was more concerned about the readouts of the ship's heading. He looked up to the nearest monitor, and confirmed the readings--the _Albatross_ was spiraling, out of control, towards the gas giant.

"All hands!" he announced. "Brace for impact!"

Still cradled in his arms, Ijhel held him just a little tighter.


	12. Chapter 12

Tirava awoke with no memory of having fallen asleep. She and Kreighen had been retreating from their unknown sniper, they had crossed the moorlands and reached the edge of a ravine, and then...nothing.

It was dark, and she gathered that she had been out long enough for night to fall on this alien moon. She was laying on a pile of ferns, dressed only in her underwear; the rest of her uniform lay neatly folded nearby. As she staggered to her feet, she found the ground was clammy and gritty. She couldn't be sure from the inside looking out, but it appeared to be a rock shelter formed as loose soil eroded out from under an outcropping of limestone. When she ventured towards the outside, she found Kreighen sitting by a pile of white-hot rocks, heated with his phaser.

He lit up when he noticed her approaching. "I was starting to worry about y--" He thought better of going there, and kept it professional. "Their weapons couldn't match ours for range and accuracy, so we made it a good seven kilometers away from them. I still don't know who they are or what they want--I can't believe they're Borg, or Species 10538, or anybody I know of, for that matter. I set up the communications transceiver, but the _Albatross_ isn't responding."

"What happened to me?" she asked.

"You suffered an infection," he explained. "I'm guessing you took a hit to the back when you were saving me from that first shot. You should have said something right away--those phase pulse burns can completely collapse an Andorian's immune system, and yours is already compromised by your Borg implants. If you hadn't fallen when you did, I wouldn't have found the problem until it was too late."

Disturbed by this, Tirava quickly began stretching her back, trying to find the injury or any lingering effects on her range of motion. "I suppose you'll use any excuse to get me undressed..."

"You're welcome," he muttered.

"Of course I'm welcome," she grumbled. "You did me a service, not a favor, and--" She sighed and sat down beside him. "And...and I was joking. I do that sometimes."

Kreighen could only shrug at her contrition. "The trouble is when you joke about the same things you take so seriously. You wanted to kill me for coming anywhere near you back at the sphere."

"I'm complicated, Jake," she offered. "And I know it, so sometimes I make light of it. And sometimes it makes me so...so angry that I don't find anything funny."

"Like when I imply that you owe me any thanks for helping you," he concluded. "You really see it like that, don't you? I'm supposed to be at your beck and call, because of a relationship you don't even want to pursue."

"I don't _need_ your...loyalty," she clarified. "I just expect it because of the role you entered into. It's second nature for Andorian men. I was betrothed before I was born to a boy I've never met. If he knew I were alive today, he would wait for me, even if I married another man, on the slim chance that I might avail someday myself of his companionship. I'm sure by now some other woman has claimed him honorably, but otherwise he is mine to do with--or have nothing to do with--as I please."

"All right, but what I don't get--" Kreighen felt awkward warming himself in the night air next to a half-naked woman, and removed his uniform tunic. "Are you all right?" he asked, handing the garment to her.

"I'm fine," she declined. "If anything, I wish it were colder."

"What I don't get," he continued, "is why you care if I disappoint you. You obviously don't give a second thought to your betrothed because you don't owe him one, and he's free to be 'claimed' by someone else. When I put myself in your position, I keep thinking you'd be thrilled if you never saw me again, and if some stranger swept me off my feet and cleaned up your problem for you. It seems like you should be trying to cut me loose, not trying to make me the perfect mate."

"That's exactly why you irritate me so much," Tirava growled. "You don't even understand why I--" She massaged the roots of her antennae and changed her tack. "Why did you save me when I succumbed to the infection?"

"Why wouldn't I? What are you talking about?"

"I know you _had_ to save my life, for any number of reasons. Because I'm your only ally against that sniper, because I'm a crewmate and a fellow officer, because your human morality places life above almost all tactical advantages. I just want to know _which_ reason made you do it."

"Because..." It seemed so obvious to him, but he couldn't articulate a response. "Because I..."

"I nearly tried to kill you today," she argued. "You wanted me to run off with the Alyseans. _You'd_ be better off without _me_."

"No," he admitted. "No, I wouldn't. I...I think you know why."

"Then you've answered your own question, pinkskin."

They grew silent for a time, contemplating what had been said and what neither could bear to say. The cold air ruddied Kreighen's cheeks. The heat of the "campfire" made Tirava's turquoise body glisten with sweat.

"What do you suppose happened to the others?" the Andorian finally asked.

"I don't know. Ajax would have insisted on sending the shuttle to look for us by now. I have to assume he can't."

The light began to shimmer in her eyes. "They w--they're a good crew."

"They're the best," he insisted, very much in the present tense. "Present company included."

"Jake..." Tirava placed her hand on his knee and forced herself to look into his eyes. "I don't...normally I'd let my actions speak for me, but you're not Andorian and...we're not okay, I know that..."

"Not yet." He could see her intentions from her antennae, and put his hand on top of her own. 

"But we may not get the chance to work it out, and I...don't...I can't..."

He leaned in and kissed her--softly at first, and then deeper as she allowed it. Tirava found it astonishingly alien--she'd never given any man the chance to make the first move, including this one. She had no idea what he might do next. When he paused, she gasped. "Is--is that how humans...?"

"Humans," he smiled, " _all_ humans...are as aggressive or passive as they want to be. That's what keeps it interesting."

Tirava trembled at this concept, but the discomfort in her face gave way to a intrigued leer. "Show me," she said.

And so he did.


	13. Chapter 13

By morning, the rocks Kreighen had heated with his phaser had cooled, and the shelter was freezing. Tirava, whose body was naturally adapted to even colder climates, was now by far the warmest thing in the cave. So when Kreighen stirred enough to notice she had left his side, it was more than he could sleep through. Mildly startled, he sat up from their bed of ferns, and found her hunched over a makeshift pot.

"You're up early," he groaned.

"Someone had to find breakfast," she explained. "And I figured I knew more about finding edible lichens than you."

"I suppose burgoo was out of the question."

She shook her head to his question, and then tasted her concoction. "Mm...it's not quite _akharrad_ , but at least it isn't toxic." She returned to his side with the pot and offered him a sample. Kreighen winced as he tasted the soup, but he knew Starfleet's survival training as well as Tirava, and ate his fill. 

Tirava watched him for a time, the knowing smile on her face growing broader and broader. "Last night was..." She couldn't find the adjective for it.

"Yeah, it was," he smiled back. "No regrets?"

"None," she decided. "We can sort out the details later." She stood and stretched her back, causing several vertebrae to audibly crack and pop. "Uzaveh," she swore, knowing exactly where the tension had originated. "I underestimated you, pinkskin."

Kreighen chuckled to himself. "You didn't give me much of a chance, the last time."

"I suppose not," she considered, as she did calf stretches against the cavern wall. "If I'd known, I'd have made some suggestions to Thlane."

Kreighen looked up, perplexed. "Thlane?"

"You remember, the Alysean first officer..."

"I remember him," he pressed, "what about him?"

"I had sex with him," she said, as casually as she might read off a duty roster.

Kreighen nearly spilled his soup. "Wait."

"He was eager to please me," she recalled fondly, "although now I'm wondering if he should have been more assertive. What do you think?"

"Tirava," Kreighen rasped, his volume steadily rising, "why would you sleep with one of the Alyseans?"

She stopped her stretches, and turned back to him. She looked as if she was seeing a third eye growing out of Kreighen's forehead. "Because I _wanted to_?" she offered. 

He looked at her like she had just shot his best friend. "Are you _serious_? What about everything you told me yesterday? What about deciding to stick with me no matter what?"

"I'm _here_ , aren't I?" Tirava answered impatiently.

"But you felt that way all along, and you still slept with him?"

"What does one have to do with the other?" 

" _Everything!_ " Kreighen shouted. "I can't believe after all of this you'd just..."

Tirava's brow furrowed, and her antennae arched upwards. "I will share my bed with whomever I please," she said defiantly. "Besides, you're the one who ran off with the Alysean captain right in front of me--"

He couldn't believe he was hearing this. "I didn't _sleep with her_! She wanted me to, I politely declined."

"Hmp." It wasn't clear if she believed that, but she didn't bother debating the point. "Still, you could have at least told her to seek my blessing."

"This is _insane_!" Kreighen fumbled his way back to the bed of ferns and began to put on his uniform. "All this time you've given me hell for the mere _appearance_ of infidelity, and I took it because...because of my feelings, and now you're acting like _you_ can fool around with anyone you want!"

Her rage momentarily melted into curiosity. "What sort of feelings?"

"Don't change the--!"

For the second time, their quarrel was interrupted by enemy fire. Phase pulse blasts, like the ones from before, streaked into the rock shelter and hit the back wall. Neither Kreighen nor Tirava were hurt; they were not the target. The attacker clearly meant to shock them, to keep them off-balance until he could reach the entrance of the cavern. The two officers would have none of it; each of them scrambled for their weapons. But it was not to be.

"Stay where you are!" The voice came from a silhouette against the sunlit entrance, perfectly comprehended by their universal translators. As he approached them, rifle in hand, his features became more clear. Reptilian, with thick feathery plumage atop his head, and reddish snakeskin marked with black streaks. Kreighen's eyes were as wide as saucers; he had met this species once before, and first contact did not end well.

"You are now prisoners of the Xhiryptyr'x," the gunman announced. "You will surrender to me or you will die."


	14. Chapter 14

They'd encountered this species once before, months ago. Kreighen's crew had just been assigned--more like exiled--to work with General Korok's cell of ex-Borg resistance fighters, in preparation for the day that Unimatrix Zero would link up its forces with the Federation Alliance. Korok was leading a fleet of ships to their next target, when a single alien, identifying his race as the Xhiryptyr'x, attacked the entire convoy with a stolen freighter. The nuisance was enough to jeopardize the Zeroes' element of surprise, and the greatest irony was that the angry young man should have been on their side--he had mistaken the Zeroes for true Borg drones, and was ranting about what they had done to his people. Commander Kreighen and his crew took their shuttlecraft out to divert the freighter, and in the end they were forced to destroy it.

So far, second contact was going no better than the first. Tirava and Kreighen had been blindfolded, bound at the wrists, and forced at gunpoint to hike over kilometers of soggy, uneven terrain. There was no dialogue with their captor; if not for the sounds of his boots in the mud and the occasional prodding of his rifle barrel, neither of them would have been sure he'd been there for the whole trip. The blindfolds were only removed when they finally arrived at their destination--a tent city inhabited by dozens of the scarlet reptilians.

Ever the explorer, Kreighen absorbed as much as he could about these people. Most of them paid little mind to the two captives being marched through the village--they were busy scraping moss and lichens from rocks, or tending to young children, or refining the peat they had collected for fuel. There was a despair in all of their faces, which Kreighen now realized was in the eyes of his escort as well. He'd seen the same faces on Solosos, Ventani, and Cardassia IV, in the aftermath of the Dominion War. These people were refugees, broken and bowed by some not-so-distant oppressor. And if the man he met all those months ago could be believed, then it was a safe bet those oppressors were Borg.

They were halted at what was apparently the "town square," and a small crowd gathered to hold court over the prisoners. It was here that Kreighen began to realize that almost all of the Xhiryptyr'x appeared to be under twenty, in human terms of aging. The exception that proved the rule soon stepped forward, wearing special accoutrements and appearing to be the only man in the camp old enough to be in Starfleet--a village "elder" in this company.

"Xao'dakin," the elder said, addressing the man who'd captured the Starfleet officers. "You have made your sect proud today. What have you brought us?"

"I found them near the ship, Askaahh," came the reply. "Their weapons were powerful, but I drove them into retreat and hunted them down. I caught them when they stopped to fornicate." He spat this last word, as if disgusted by the foolish vanity of his quarry.

Askaahh examined the pair. He was particularly intrigued by the scars and microcircuit fibers on Tirava's head and neck, brushing aside the long hair she had grown to hide such things. And yet, he was even more fascinated to find no such markings on Kreighen. "You," he asked the human. "you consort with the impure ones?"

Kreighen had a good idea how Tirava would react to that particular phrase, and gave her a harsh glance before she got them in any more trouble. "I don't understand. Do you mean her cybernetic components?"

"She's infested," the elder insisted. "How has she not infected you?"

"She was...purged," the commander explained. "Look at her skin, her hair--you can tell she _was_ 'infested,' but she's healing. She is not your enemy anymore. That's why I she and I travel together. We are not your enemies." 

"He's lying!" a teenager shouted from the crowd. "They're not even the same species! Why would they be companions?"

"What of it?" Askaahh posed to Kreighen. "Did you heal her so you could enslave her? What do you know about the Mechanical People...?" 

Commander Kreighen couldn't help but think back to his exodiplomacy professor at the Academy; he was going to need every bit of that old bastard's lessons today. "My people are called humans. We believe in peaceful coexistence with everyone, even people that are different from us. When my ancestors first explored space, we met her people, the Andorians. They were at war with other races we encountered, until we convinced them all to join together, as one sect. Our sect is at war with the 'Mechanical People'--we call them 'the Borg.' They refuse to make peace with us. They demand that we all be infected with their infestation. They would force us to help them conquer the galaxy. They enslaved this woman, but we rescued her. We fight to stop them from enslaving other cultures."

"I don't believe him, Askaahh," Xao'dakin declared. "How can anybody make peace with war? And why make peace with enemies who violate your women? His own words fight with each other!"

"Then at least half of them are not lying," Askaahh reasoned. Studying Tirava, he tested his theory. "Woman, which half should I believe?"

She sneered at his tone, but swallowed her pride to answer. "Kreighen's people are peacemakers, and they would make peace with the Borg if they could. But my people are the warriors, and we live by a strict code of honor that allows no disgrace to go unpunished. We've met a member of your species, and I know that honor is important to you too."

"It is," Askaahh acknowledged.

"Then I swear to you," she continued, "on my honor, that we will fight the Borg until they pay for everything they've done. And wishful thinking aside, there won't be enough of them left after that to make peace."

The elder seemed impressed by this gesture, albeit not completely persuaded. "There is one way to test what you say," he concluded as he circled the pair. "Tonight, the Mechanical People who survived the crash will come for us. You will help defend the village. You will kill them, or you will die."


	15. Chapter 15

"I was six years old when they first came," Xao'dakin explained. "I don't remember how it started--only that they would raid our ships without warning, take what they wanted, and leave the rest to rot." He directed Kreighen and Tirava up a hill, where they could view the entire refugee camp. "My father was taken before I was eight, and I never saw him again. I swore that day to avenge him, and kill as many Mechanical People as I could."

"I take it that's what you were doing aboard that sphere when it crashed," Kreighen deduced.

The young man smiled at the thought. "We were prisoners on their ship, but something happened to their guidance systems. Askaahh led us in revolt, and we slaughtered dozens of them. _I_ piloted the ship into the nebula, and found this moon."

"Rough landing," the commander smiled back.

"It...was not as easy to fly as I expected," Xao'dakin admitted. "But I earned my name that day. Askaahh trusts _me_ to watch over you, and make sure you are the allies you claim to be. Those responsibilities don't come easily."

"I don't understand something," Tirava said. "How were you able to fight the Borg in close quarters? Wouldn't they have assimilated you?"

"What is 'assimilated?'"

She was hoping he wouldn't ask. "When the Borg...captured me, they surgically altered my body, to make me one of them. They usually start by, um, 'infecting' their victims with a stinger." She traced her finger along the back of her hand, where her own Borg assimilation tubules had once been, to illustrate her point.

Xao'dakin shook his head in confusion. "They never tried to attack us that way. When we resist the Mechanical People, they just shoot us. But they never kill us--they are weak, and they value us as slaves, and that is how we defeat them in battle. I would die to kill five of them, but they would not kill me to save a dozen."

The two Starfleet officers were already exchanging suspicious glances. They'd been in enough battles to agree with the youth about the Borg's tactical inadequacies. But that only became relevant once their ability to assimilate was off the table. The Federation war effort hinged upon negating that advantage. And yet Xao'dakin, who had evidently been fighting Borg his whole life, had never heard of such a thing. 

"I want to make sure I have this right," Kreighen began. "The Borg enslave the Xhiryptyr'x, but they don't assimilate any of your people?"

Xao'dakin bared his fangs. "Are you accusing me of lying, Human Commander Kreighen?"

"No! I just--"

"Good," he snapped. Combing back the wild plumage on his head, he revealed a small incision four centimeters above his left eye. "This is the only surgery they did to me--to all my people when we are captured. They take each Xhiryptyr'x into a room, cut out a piece of his brain, and put him to work fighting their battles and killing their enemies. If that isn't good enough for you, then perhaps you should talk to them when they arrive."

Tirava wasn't putting up with this treatment. "We just want to make sure we know what we're dealing with. Any child can die in battle; an adult gathers as much intelligence on the enemy as--"

The Xhiryptyr'x surprised her with a backhanded slap to the jaw. As she regained her footing, he hissed to Kreighen, "You've let your woman get out of control. I will not."

The commander was outraged, but he thought better of showing it. Tirava didn't need his protection, so he simply crossed his arms and smirked. "Good luck with that."

The teenager was distracted by this long enough for Tirava grab a handful of the feathers on the back of his head, pulling him off balance as she disarmed him, and delivered a powerful knee strike to his back. By human standards it was hardly fair; by Andorian standards, it became fair the moment he turned his back on her. When she had taken enough of the fight out of him, she pointed his own pistol at his head. "If this is how you fight the Borg, it's no wonder none of you make it past twenty-five."

"That's enough, Lieutenant," Kreighen said, although he took his time before doing so. Once she released him, he continued. "Xao'dakin, it doesn't matter if you trust me or if you think we don't trust you. From what you've told us so far, at least thirty drones are going to attack at dusk, and I can't contact my ship to save myself."

" _Travhe_ ," Xao'dakin swore as he nursed his ribs. "You're no different than the Mechanical People. You think you're more worthy than the Xhiryptyr'x--"

"I think that if you were right I could have had Tirava shoot you with your own weapon thirty seconds ago," the commander pointed out. "I'll let you in on a secret, kid"--he nodded in the Andorian's direction--"she and I aren't getting along these days, but we both know those Borg don't care, so we have to work together. And that still won't be enough to stop them, so we have to work with you."

The reptilian stewed for a few moments, but he couldn't argue the point. "Fine," he spat. "Where do we begin?"

"That's up to my tactical officer," Kreighen insisted, again gesturing to his crewmate. "You can explain the situation to her. But if I have any questions, I'll be sure to ask."


	16. Chapter 16

By twilight Xao'dakin had fully debriefed Kreighen and Tirava about the Borg trapped on this moon with them. About forty of them had escaped the sphere in the Borg equivalent of lifeboats--yet another peculiar characteristic of these drones, unheard of in the Collective. Evidently all of these escape pods made their way here, and the survivors gathered together with whatever technology they could cannibalize to fashion and outpost not far from the Xhiryptyr'x encampment.

Given Xao'dakin's aggressive tendencies, it was no surprise that the Xhiryptyr'x had considered, and attempted, several offensives against the drones in their makeshift outpost. But the Borg, though severely outnumbered, had superior weaponry and defenses, and could easily hold off a direct assault or disrupt a siege. The refugees had fashioned their own technology from the shipwreck, but they could only rebuild to their own level of scientific progress. Their phase pistols amounted to wielding crossbows against an enemy armed with flintlock rifles. And so the Borg were effectively free to go on the offensive at their leisure, conducting hit-and-run raids to slowly weaken and demoralize their target. The Xhiryptyr'x estimated that about thirty drones still lived, and this was more than enough to hound them indefinitely, although to what end Kreighen could not be sure. 

The camp was painfully quiet as the night set in--the Xhiryptyr'x women and young children stayed huddled in their tents, and all males old enough to fight skulked through the village waiting for the battle. It was impossible to be sure which direction the Borg would come from. The camp was situated at the base of a bluff, leaving every other direction completely vulnerable to long-range weapons. There was no front line to defend, and the Xhiryptyr'x seemed to accept this, waiting patiently for someone to start shooting. The only certainty was that at least one of their "guests" would see combat as soon as the fighting started. Tirava was on the other side of the camp, with Xao'dakin; Kreighen was kept within arm's reach of Askaahh.

The commander was no stranger to the tension of waiting for war. After checking and re-checking the phase pulse pistol he'd been given--they didn't trust him with his own phaser--and confirming for the hundredth time that he could not see anything coming, he finally struck up a conversation with the leader of the refugees. "Tirava and I noticed that all of your people are very young."

"The old and the weak have no place in our society," Askaahh grunted. "The rest choose to die resisting the Mechanical People."

"But you can't have been in captivity very long. I would think at least some of your elders would have made it this far--"

Askaahh glared at him. "That sphere we crashed," he explained, "took us prisoner nine years ago. I was not much older than Xao'dakin; most of the others my age soon died in the raids they use us for."

"Raids?"

"They enslave us to fight for them against their rival sects." The village elder shook his head at the irony. "Forced labor and in-fighting are no strangers to my people, human. In some ways nothing has changed since the Transformation."

Kreighen found that the more he inquired about these people, the more confused he became. "Askaahh, what are you talking ab--"

The conversation was interrupted by the sound of energy discharges in the distance. Warning shots--it had to be. It was unthinkable that the drones were close enough to open fire but too far away to hit anything. They were _trying_ to rattle the Xhiryptyr'x; it was the only explanation, and it was completely incompatible with everything he knew about the Borg. But then, so was forgoing assimilation of conquered species. And slavery. And sectarian conflict.

"I need answers," the commander declared.

"We've told you everything we can about them," Askaahh replied.

"That's the problem. I'm assuming the Xhiryptyr'x always shoot to kill the Mechanical People."

"We have no use for mercy, least of all for our oppressors."

The warning shots ended. Bright green pulses of energy strafed the camp, but did little damage to the populated areas. The attack was consistent with the apparent motive to harass the refugees without risking their value as slaves. Humanoid figures began to appear in the darkness, firing wildly into the shanty town and deliberately making a ruckus.

"Then they won't see this coming," Kreighen reasoned. "I'm going out there."

"You're mad!"

"That's what they'll think." Or at least they would think that if they weren't rank-and-file automatons of the Borg Collective. Therein lay the gamble, but by now it was feeling like a sure thing. "The first time my people defeated the Borg, we did it by capturing a prisoner. If can interrogate one of them, we'll have a better idea of how to fight them." He gestured to the weapon Askaahh had confiscated from him. "Set my phaser to kill, and use it to keep them off-balance and away from me." 

The elder shook his head. "This will _not_ work."

"Relax...at least you'll finally know whose side I'm on."

With that, Kreighen dashed out into the open, paying no mind to the small army of Borg drones in his path. He soon heard his own sidearm firing past him, and the wall of drones began to scatter. He was expecting a reaction like that; they couldn't have dreamed the Xhiryptyr'x would have obtained even a single phaser, and it completely threw off their strategy. His gamble had paid off. These were Borg, but they were _not_ drones. They lacked any adaptations to defend against the phaser fire, they didn't march like lemmings into enemy fire, and their "collective" had been thrown into complete disarray in one move. None of this was on his mind, though--all that concerned him was tackling the first Borg he could grab.

Kreighen began to fire the pistol he'd been given, hoping to stun one of the attackers. One of his random blasts caught a Borg in the hip, and he capitalized on that opportunity with a leaping takedown. As he subdued his new prisoner, he heard Askaahh and others charging in behind him, shooting and hollering all the way. Improbably, Kreighen had done just enough to break the Borg's lines and create an opportunity for the Xhiryptyr'x to advance against them. The war was far from over, but tonight's battle had been won.

"Askaahh," Kreighen gasped as he caught his breath, "we'll need some place to hold the prisoner, under heavy guard. Check with Tirava, she'll have some ideas about how to--"

"My god," the Borg groaned, in a woman's voice. "You're...you're from the Federation."

Kreighen had not gotten a clear look at his captive, but the sound of her voice compelled him to pull her to her feet and see what he was dealing with. The light from the camp was dim, this far away, but he knew his own people when he saw them. This Borg was human. "I...yes," he stammered. "I am."

That was all Askaahh needed to hear. Leveling his phaser at Kreighen's head, he sneered. "You were right--I really did find out your allegiances after all."


	17. Chapter 17

With a little luck, Commander Kreighen had driven off the Borg attackers and captured a valuable hostage, one that might yield valuable intelligence about the motive behind the raids. For his trouble, he was rewarded with a good luck at the business end of a phaser.

Amidst the commotion, Tirava and Xao'dakin were among the crowd of Xhiryptyr'x that had come to find their village elder holding Kreighen at gunpoint. "Askaahh," Xao'dakin demanded. "What is the meaning of this?"

"I was wondering the same thing," Kreighen added. He tossed his own weapon aside and held up his hands. "What exactly made you decide I must be your enemy?"

"That," Askaahh gestured to the Borg woman that the commander had just subdued, "said you were a Federation."

"We've fought the Borg before. Of course they would recognize where I'm from." Kreighen hoped to avoid the awkward matter that this woman was _not_ helplessly driven by the Borg Collective, and very much a member of his species. It had been hard enough to explain away Tirava having even the slightest remnants of Borg handiwork. For her part, the Borg woman kept her eyes on the ground and said nothing; perhaps she realized that the Xhiryptyr'x would surely see her dead unless the Starfleet officers could arrange a better fate.

"But _I_ recognize where you're from," Askaahh sneered, "because _we_ have fought you before." He waved to the people surrounding him to gather closer. "These children could not possibly know. I am the oldest, and I was barely a man when it happened. But they should hear the story and know why this Federation is our enemy, and why he and his woman are no better than the Mechanical People."

"Askaahh, as far as I know, I'm the first 'Federation' that ever laid eyes on a Xhiryptyr'x."

The reptilian was done speaking to him, and commenced telling the tribe about him. "You see how arrogant he is, how he believes his uniform and his technology and his Federation make him so superior to us, even when he knows nothing about us. It was like that when the Federations first came to this part of the galaxy. It was fifteen years ago when the starship _Voyager_ arrived, and they immediately made an enemy of the Kazon-Ogla. They made food and water from thin air, and boasted about these talents, but would share none of their gifts.

" _Voyager_ traveled with impunity through the territory of others, always taking what they wanted and sharing nothing. They flaunted their uniforms and their 'enlightened' philosophies about brotherhood and noninterference. But make no mistake, the Federations wanted everyone they met to be just like them. When they could not bend the Delta Quadrant to their will, they conspired with the Trabe to attempt a decapitation strike against the First Majes of five Kazon sects."

Kreighen could stand no more. "I _know_ Admiral Janeway," he interrupted. "She would never have willingly gone along with a stunt like--"

"Impudent as ever, these Federations," Askaahh retorted. "They were so proud to be above the 'petty' conflicts of the Kazon, but they were perfectly willing to look the other way when one of _Voyager_ 's crewmen went 'rogue' and gave miraculous technology to the Kazon-Nistrim, which was used to kill the leadership of the Relora.

"Then one day, the Nistrim came to the Kazon-Jeptruux, an inconsequential sect with only three raiders to back up their claims. The Nistrim sold them secrets that they said had been taken from _Voyager_ by manipulating a malcontent among their crew. No one thought to ask why the Nistrim would sell this information, instead of using it for their own benefit. The Jeptruux were simply eager to use the power to transcend the infinite speed barrier, to expand their territory and become a respected power in the quadrant. But the Nistrim never spoke of the side effects of breaking the barrier...the agonizing cellular mutations..."

Kreighen was stunned by this, but he dared not say so. He knew _Voyager_ had conducted test flights to cross the warp 10 threshold, the better to return home from the Delta Quadrant. The work was abandoned when it nearly resulted in the inexplicable hyper-evolution of the test subjects--the logs on the matter were notoriously vague. The concept of warp 10 travel had been reconsidered in the build-up to the Federation invasion of Borg space, but by then Starfleet had several competing methods of transwarp propulsion, and Admiral Janeway was extremely reluctant to revisit the 2372 experiments. Evidently, her enemies had been much bolder. 

"You're...you're all Kazon," he finally muttered. He cursed himself for not realizing it sooner.

"We _were_ ," Askaahh clarified. "When the Jeptruux fleet first broke the barrier and entered this region of space, we knew that the Federations were to blame for our misfortune. But your people failed to consider that we might fare better than you. The Trabe and the Mechanical People value us as slaves because we are hardy and resilient. We survived the effects of infinite speed, and we became more than we were. The Xhiryptyr'x are as far beyond the Federations as you thought you were beyond the Kazon. Perhaps when we have defeated the Mechanical People, we will go to your Alpha Quadrant and prove it."

"Better maniacs than you have tried!" Tirava shouted from the crowd. Within seconds of saying this, the Xhiryptyr'x around her piled on, demonstrating their loyalty to their leader, their history, and their manifest destiny. Kreighen could only watch, still frozen in his tracks by Askaahh's phaser.

"Enough!" the elder announced. "Confine all of the prisoners under heavy guard. We'll deal with them at daybreak." Glaring at the Borg woman he added, "Strip this one of anything that can be used as a weapon, and be thorough about it."

As Kreighen was forcibly pulled away, he managed to catch one last look at the cyborg, who was staring back at him. Her expression was one of resignation, and empathy for his frustrations--her face seemed to say _Now you finally understand_.


	18. Chapter 18

> Ship's log, supplemental. Sergeant Ajax reporting.
> 
> We remain in the upper atmosphere of the J-class gas giant following the ambush of a Borg tactical cube. Ensign Jimenez has worked around the clock effecting repairs to the _Albatross_ , but under the circumstances his priorities have been structural integrity, attitude control, and life support. Defense systems are only sporadically functional, and even at peak performance this ship would be no match for the cube.
> 
> For the past thirty-two hours I have maintained a course circumnavigating the planet. My initial strategy was to keep the planet between us and the cube, but it has adjusted its orbit to match our every move--I believe they are scanning for the displacement of the gas giant's atmosphere to detect our maneuvers, just as we re scanning for their nebular wake. It isn't clear why the Borg would stalk us in this manner, but I am hoping their interest in us will prevent them from sending landing parties to the moon, where our away team remains trapped. For now, we're in stalemate, but eventually we'll be forced to make a run for it.  
> 

"Utana, wake up..."

Doctor Ijhel slowly roused from her sleep, and then suddenly jumped up from her bed. Or rather, _not_ her bed. The warm, stale air of the _Albatross_ had been replaced by the cool, salty breeze of Lake Cataria; she had been sleeping at the resort within her own holo-simulation. "Wha--how did I end up...?"

Ensign Jimenez was looking down over her. "I don't know," he answered. "Ajax just said I'd find you here."

"Ajax," she groaned, as she rubbed the tendon between her neck and shoulder. "I was on the bridge, trying to make myself useful while he played hound-and-vole with the Borg...he was saying I was showing signs of exhaustion, but I assured him it was nothing. Then..." She stroked the underside of her jaw, as if to stir memories of an hypospray being pressed there. "I think he sedated me?"

"Look, I don't have time for this," Jimenez interrupted. "I need your help."

"Oh?" She stood up and began straightening her hair. "With what?"

"I've got an idea," he began, "and it's kind of...well, it's out there, but it might fix everything...but I'll need you to set up an protocol interface for the hollow men, something that can send instructions directly into their core cognitive hyperthreading."

"Instructions?"

"Well, they're all over the ship helping me with repairs, but--this ship just isn't designed to have its maintenance done this way and..." He struggled to stop circling around his point. "I have an idea that would let me interface directly with them."

"So do I," Ijhel quipped. "It's called a communicator."

"No, I mean..." Jimenez looked into the air as he struggled to gather his thoughts. "They're soldiers, not engineers. Whenever they run into something complicated, they have to stop and contact me. I'm the single point of failure--the only one who really knows how to keep the ship running. But if I could _distribute_ my knowledge more efficiently...this ship is designed for a crew linked together to a common mind, so if I could link my thoughts to the hollow men they could be my hands...it would be a lot easier to coordinate a counterstrike against the Borg..."

She eyed him as though he were talking about drilling a hole in his head. "Even if I can set up their matrices to receive that kind of data, what makes you think you can transmit it?"

"I've spent six months in Borg space," he argued, "and my entire career learning how they process their interlink signals. The parts to set up a basic neural transceiver are all around us; I just finally have a reason to put it together."

Ijhel shook her head. "I can't."

"You won't have to do anything, Utana--just set up Ajax and the others to pick up the signal, and I'll be the one to--"

"Nathan. I won't help you do this."

"Why?"

"Because I know you," she said. "You're a fine young man, Ensign, but you're more comfortable with machines than you are with people. I'm...familiar with the concept, but for me programming is the art of fighting with the machine to get it to do what I want. For you it's a way of escaping from social situations."

This was making him uncomfortable. "I don't--what are you talking about? What are you getting at?"

"You've been in command of this ship since Kreighen and Tirava stayed behind on the moon, but you haven't set foot on the bridge once."

"How would you know?" Jimenez argued. "You've been down here for hours--"

"Ah, well, am I wrong then?" Ijhel allowed him time to answer, but expected the silence that she received instead. "I thought not. You're afraid of the big chair, Nathan. That's what this is about. You don't want to be in charge of the hollow men, you want to _be_ the hollow men so you can do all the work without having to actually delegate any responsibilities."

"OK, all right, I get it," Jimenez acknowledged with some frustration. "But that doesn't make it a bad plan."

"We're not going to beat the Borg by becoming them," Ijhel insisted. "I'm no expert on combat, but I think if Commander Kreighen were here he'd say that our only advantages now are the things that make each of us unique, the things that make this crew more than the sum of its parts. We need a leader, not a collective. And--though I hate to be the bearer of bad news--that leader is you."

"Why?" the engineer wondered. "Because I'm an ensign, and there's nobody around to outrank me? That...you know...I don't think that's a good enough reason. Kreighen's a senior officer, Tirava has years of tactical experience...Ajax is programmed to know more about military history than I ever bothered to read. Hell, I'd even follow you before I'd take my own advice."

Ijhel blinked. "Me?"

"Well sure. You're a civilian but you're...confident, assertive. You always have some idea or trick up your sleeve."

"That's...very kind of you to say," she admitted. "But it doesn't change anything. We're all prepared to follow _you_ , Nathan. We're just waiting for you to accept it and lead us somewhere."

Jimenez shrugged. "The thing is, I'm not sure I can command my way out of this mess." He turned away to think, and as he pondered the matter he suddenly raised his head, and looked back with newfound inspiration. "But...but maybe I can engineer my way out."


	19. Chapter 19

Tents were in short supply in the Xhiryptyr'x compound, so Kreighen and Tirava were confined in a musty shed cobbled together from scrap metal. The Borg prisoner was taken elsewhere--given Askaahh's instructions, she was probably being stripped for spare parts like an old shuttlecraft.

The night air was just as cold in the structure as it had been in the cave, except this time Kreighen didn't have a campfire. He didn't have Tirava's companionship either--not in any way that he found acceptable, at least. So he sat huddled in the corner, shivering, as his hot-blooded "cellmate" paced about in vain.

When she was tired of climbing the walls, she broke the long silence between them. "Are you ever going to tell me what that was all about?"

Kreighen slowly looked up at her. "You'll have to be more specific."

"All of it--what are 'Kazon' and what's all this talk about infinite speed? What did Janeway do that's enough to get us locked in here?"

"I don't know for sure," he admitted, "but from what I've heard about _Voyager_ 's trip through the Delta Quadrant, Askaahh was telling a colorful version of the truth. The Kazon are a fiercely territorial and sectarian race. They were more or less mammalian, from what I read. They claimed various territory on the other side of Borg space, and viewed the Federation as nothing but a rival sect competing for their dominance. Some of Janeway's crew thought they'd never make it back to Earth unless they made alliances with the local powers. One of them must have told the Kazon about the warp 10 experiment."

"And that turned them into reptilians?"

"The effects on humans were...stranger," Kreighen retorted. "Something called 'Paris's telomorphosis syndrome.' I don't know _how_ it works, but somehow accelerating to infinite speed causes people to mutate or evolve, or something. The Xhiryptyr'x are evidently happy with the results." 

"I'm not," she huffed. "Jake, we've got to get out here. Let these people and the Borg shoot it out on this mudball, until they wipe each other out."

Kreighen glared at her, and rose to his feet. "First of all, I don't care how repugnant these people act towards us, I can't walk away and let them be be recaptured and enslaved. Second, there's still too many questions about the Borg that are harassing them. And third, you've spent six months handing me 'Commander' this and 'Kreighen' that, so you've got some nerve trying to be friendly now."

Tirava rubbed her temples. "Uzaveh...we don't have time for this--"

"Seems to me like we've got nothing but time!" 

"You are blowing the whole thing out of proportion," she argued. "I spent one night with Thlane, and I'll probably never see him again, but you act like he's competing for your position! He isn't!"

"And you keep talking like I don't have any say in my 'position!' Well maybe I don't want--"

Both of them stopped when they heard a rustling at the door. It flung open, and two Xhiryptyr'x hauled the Borg woman inside, all but throwing her to the ground. When they left, Kreighen rushed to the woman's side; Tirava simply turned away and crossed her arms.

The Xhiryptyr'x had been thorough, if not very careful, in taking anything of value. Much of her right forearm had been disassembled, and the ocular implant that had been over her left eye was gone. Large swatches of armor plating--attached to the skin with elaborate microsutures--had been pried loose, exposing raw, bloody flesh. Seeing her like this, Kreighen began to wonder if he had been on the wrong side.

"I'm Lieutenant Commander Jake Kreighen," he told her. "And you?"

She struggled to her feet--the Borg weren't designed well for falling down or getting back up. "L-Laura," she wheezed. "Laura Heimbold."

Kreighen couldn't help but smile slightly--he hadn't expected to meet a human out in this part of space. "You're a long way from home, Laura."

"My husband was a security officer on the USS _Roosevelt_...I was aboard when it was mobilized against the Borg at Wolf 359. Some of us were assimilated and sent back through a transwarp conduit." She examined the commander's face. "But that must seem like ancient history to you."

"I was fourteen," he replied, "and I was up all night listening to news coverage of the battle. We didn't know they took any prisoners, though. How did you escape the Collective?"

Heimbold settled for sitting upright against the wall, and continued her story. "I had a recessive gene, a one-in-a-million mutation that allowed me to retain my individuality while I was in regeneration mode. Many drones in the Collective had this same mutation, and we could co-exist in a sort of dreamscape."

"Unimatrix Zero?" Kreighen realized.

"Yes...you've heard of us?" Her one good eye lit up. "Did Annika bring you here?"

"No." Kreighen knew whom she meant. After _Voyager_ 's run through Kazon territory, the ship crossed Borg space and rescued a human drone, Annika Hansen, also known as Seven of Nine. Hansen had been a part of this "dreamscape," and was instrumental in securing _Voyager_ 's help to transform Unimatrix Zero from the Borg underground to a true resistance movement in the waking world. "No, Annika and her crewmates were assigned to a mission in the Beta Quadrant. But their captain--admiral, now--is in command of a large fleet fighting a full-scale war against the Borg, just a few hundred light years away. Do you remember a Klingon from your group named Korok?"

She smiled at the sound of the name. "With a rotten disposition and a nasty snaggletooth?"

Kreighen chuckled. "That's him! We were working with him just a few months ago, before our shuttle was stranded in this region."

"It's good to know he's still alive," Heimbold nodded. "My cell has spent nine years barely holding out against the Borg. At first I was sure I'd hear from the others, but after nine years...I suppose I lost hope."

He had to change the subject. "Laura, what are you doing _here_? The way the Xhiryptyr'x told it, I thought you were part of the Collective, or some rogue bunch of malfunctioning drones. They said they were prisoners on your sphere, that you and your crew enslaved them."

"I see." She grimaced a bit, and turned away from him as she summoned up her response. "I'm not going to have the answers you want to hear, Commander. The Xhiryptyr'x said those things because they're true."


	20. Chapter 20

"You have to understand," Laura Heimbold began. "When the drones who were part of Unimatrix Zero regained their individuality, we found ourselves thousands of light years apart, each of us stationed on Borg ships throughout the four quadrants of the galaxy. It was a miracle I managed to take control of my sphere, and disconnect the rest of the crew from the Collective...let alone contacting other members of the resistance and gaining a foothold in this sector.

"I don't know if I can explain to you how difficult it was, especially in those first few months. We were a handful of ships, against the juggernaut that built them. Thousands joined us; hundreds died. Many debated whether we should cut our losses and return to various homeworlds. Some didn't bother to debate, and simply deserted us. Some decided they preferred to rejoin the Collective--everything they knew about us instantly became a liability."

"And then you encountered the Xhiryptyr'x," Kreighen presumed.

"It wasn't something we planned," she explained. "One of our ships was scouting for a planet we could use as a base of operations. Class M, Class H, Class K--all that really mattered was that the Borg hadn't already conquered it. When they found one, they were horrified to discover a cube in orbit, and took evasive action to avoid detection...but the cube simply scanned the planet for thirty minutes and moved on. When our people moved in to investigate, they found a large Xhiryptyr'x colony on the surface, with technology equivalent to Earth in the 22nd century. The Borg had disregarded them completely."

"Why?" Kreighen asked. "I've never known the Borg to be picky--they'll use anything, anyone they find."

"No they don't." Tirava finally made her voice heard from the opposite side of the cell. "The Borg don't assimilate for it's own sake. They're trying to improve upon their perfection, by absorbing anything possessing qualities they find distinctive from themselves. That distinction has to be remarkable to the Borg--some species don't make the cut."

Heimbold nodded. "Our sensor readings identified the Xhiryptyr'x as Species 329--designated by the Collective to be an inferior species that would detract from their perfection."

It was starting to fit together for Kreighen. "The Kazon."

"We could see with our own eyes that the readings were faulty," Heimbold elaborated. "The Xhiryptyr'x may have evolved from the Kazon, but they're clearly a totally different species now. But as far as the Collective is concerned, Species 329 is a dead end, unworthy of either assimilation or reevaluation. And if the Borg don't see you as a threat, or a target..."

"They ignore you altogether," Kreighen recalled. "I'm beginning to see the strategic value in having them on your side. But _slavery_?"

"I know it sounds harsh, Commander. The concept was abhorrent to many of us--humans, Karemma, Lokirrim...but many others felt that the ends justified the means. We'd sacrificed so much, and lost a great deal, and we'd rationalized it by believing we were fighting the good fight, against an existential threat to the galaxy. The Quarren, the Cardassians, the T-Rogorans, and many others argued that the Borg had to be stopped by any means necessary, even if it offended our consciences. Some of us tried to sidestep the controversy and just _ask_ the Xhiryptyr'x to join our cause, but we could never make them understand--the Borg had never troubled them, and they had no interest in fighting anyone else's battles. Finally, one faction in the debate acted unilaterally, and raided the colony--they knew once it began, the rest of us would understand that this would happen whether we sanctioned it or not.

"I'm...I'm not proud of what we did to them. It wasn't easy to subjugate them--the Xhiryptyr'x have latent mental abilities that they haven't fully mastered, and to keep them in line we had to remove portions of their paracortex. But within weeks we began to see real progress against the Borg. We would beam platoons of Xhiryptyr'x shock troops onto enemy ships, and they'd be completely ignored as they sabotaged key systems. Between our knowledge of the Collective and their ability to penetrate Borg security, we began to put a major dent in their control of this spatial grid. Our projections suggest that we'll be strong enough to launch an attack on Borg-controlled planets by the end of the year."

Kreighen wasn't persuaded. "And that's enough to justify war crimes?"

"'Justify' has nothing to do with it, Commander," she rebutted. "Would you have us stop, and invite the Borg to commit _their_ war crimes instead?"

"At least they're being true to their principles," he scoffed. "My god, Laura, you're human. Maybe the Cardassians and whoever else can hold heir noses and do this, but you and I both know you can't sleep at night with this on you shoulders."

And at this, she abandoned any pretense of seeking his approval or absolution. "I don't sleep _at all_ , Commander," Heimbold said, straightening her back. "And one of my shoulders was replaced with a tritanium prosthetic. For me all that matters is stopping the Borg. You can ask your Andorian friend, and she'll tell you the same thing."

"She has," Kreighen admitted, "and it doesn't change anything. I refuse to make it a choice between the Borg turning us into automatons or forcing us to turn _ourselves_ into warlords. I think Unimatrix Zero isn't going to let you get away with this, and I _know_ Starfleet won't."

"I don't expect to get away with this," she shot back. "I expect the Xhiryptyr'x are going to torture me and kill me in the morning, and make me pay for everything I've done to them. But it doesn't change anything. The rest of my crew are still out there, and they'll be joined by reinforcements any day now. This entire camp is going to be swarming with Unimatrix Zero attack fighters, and the Xhiryptyr'x are going to be captured, shackled, and sent back to the front. Whether Starfleet likes it or not, people that _want_ to resist the Borg are going to exploit species that _can_. So if I were you, I'd find a way out of this hellhole, and contact my associates. Because the real enemy is the Collective, and right now you're on the wrong side."


	21. Chapter 21

Nathan Jimenez stepped onto the bridge of the _Albatross_ with a look of resolve. "Report," he ordered Ajax, trying his best to sound like Starfleet brass.

"The enemy cube continues to match our maneuvers, staying in orbit over our position," Ajax explained. "They know this ship design and they know it wasn't designed for this planet's atmospheric pressure. Structural integrity is at 45% and falling, although repairs have staved off hull breaches. I estimate we have five hours before we have to get back into open space."

The ensign nodded and tapped his commbadge. "Bridge to Benkei. What's your status?"

"We've reconfigured the ship's entire complement of magnetometric guides charges," Benkei answered, "and positioned them according to your instructions. But sir, I can't guarantee this is going to work the way you've got it planned."

"I can," Jimenez replied confidently. "Let me worry about it, Corporal--just assemble the hollow men at Subjunction 135." Closing the channel, he checked on the rest of his plan. "Jimenez to Ijhel. Are you ready?"

"Frankly, Ensign, we won't know until we've succeeded or failed," the Cardassian responded. "At this point I can recite the Borg interlink stack specs backwards, but until we send the signal--"

"No guarantees," he interjected, "That's the motto of the SS _Albatross_. Just be ready to make the call when our window is opened." Jimenez toured the bridge, making sure everything nothing was amiss before he gave the biggest order in his young career. "Mr. Saam," he said to the hologram at the helm, "take us out, one quarter impulse."

"Aye, sir," Saam answered, and sent the _Albatross_ from a dead stop to a blistering speed through the gas giant's upper atmosphere. "Now clearing the orbit of the Borg cube."

Ajax was at tactical, monitoring their attacker. "They're now in pursuit. They'll overtake us in six seconds."

"Increase to full impulse," Jimenez commanded. "Take us out of the solar system's orbital plane." This bought the _Albatross_ some breathing room, and kept it clear of any planetary bodies floating through the nebular fog. But it did nothing to discourage pursuit. The tactical cube rushed after its target, easily following its wake in the stellar dust.

Ajax kept a sharp eye on the proximity sensors. "We'll be in their weapons range in ten...nine...eight..."

"Broadcast 'Jimenez-1' on all channels, on my mark," the ensign instructed. When his gut told him the cube was close enough, he made his move. "Hard about, set return course. Mark!"

The _Albatross_ turned on a dime, and strafed the cube while emitting a series of frequencies designed to jam the Borg interlink network. If the crew of the enemy vessel was part of the Collective, the jamming signal would disrupt that connection. But even if they weren't, it would prevent them from picking any other signals up on their neuro-transceivers.

"Jimenez to Ijhel, your window is open."

"Acknowledged!" Ijhel answered, moments before the entire ship quaked under an attack.

"They're firing absorption missiles," Ajax reported. "Shield grids seven-alpha and eleven-gamma are drained, reallocating power to compensate!"

"We need a hiding place, Sergeant," Jimenez decided. "Recommendations?"

"The planet's seventh moon is seven thousand kilometers ahead," Ajax said. "Let them catch up to us and then jump into orbit at the last second."

Jimenez nodded and looked to his pilot. "Saam, you heard the man."

The _Albatross_ fell to one-half impulse, creeping up on the desolate moon as the cube turned back to renew its pursuit at full speed. As it closed in, it opened fire again, raining down on the smaller vessel with a torrent of missiles and cutting lasers. The bridge shook around Jimenez as he kept his eye on his magnetometric charges. "Let's make this look good," he announced. "Bridge to Benkei, stand by. Mr. Saam, full impulse, now!"

At his command, his ship jumped back to top sublight speed, even as the cube continued its barrage. Minor explosions erupted on the _Albatross_ 's hull, then a coolant leak in one of the aft subjunctions. Finally, just as it completed its lurch into the orbit of the moon, the _Albatross_ exploded into a sunburst of ignited plasma and superheated nebular matter.

The cube did not pause to examine the destruction; it simply turned and launched itself back to the L-class moon, to resume its original mission.


	22. Chapter 22

"I think it worked," Jimenez smiled nervously. "What's our status?"

"Structural integrity at 63% and holding," Ajax reported. "Quaternary shield grids compensating for several hull breaches. All propulsion systems are still online, including transwarp drive. You did it, sir."

Starfleet's best estimates suggested that a Borg vessel could continue to function even if three-quarters of it was rendered inoperative. Ensign Jimenez had gambled that this would be true for the _Albatross_ , even if three-quarters of the ship was rendered gone. His careful arrangement of his own armaments had the skill of a demolitions expert, destroying the bulk of the ship while preserving an inner core. Owing to Borg design, what was left of the _Albatross_ was fully self-sufficient, containing every key system necessary for spacefaring. The only irreplaceable component, the long-sought-after transwarp coil, was safe and sound.

The real problem was using the explosion to cover the _Albatross_ 's escape. "What about the cube?" Jimenez asked.

"It's already out of sensor range," Corporal Saam concluded. "If they detected us emerging from the explosion, they must have mistaken us for a large chunk of debris. They're on a direct course for the L-class moon, full impulse."

"Make sure that moon stays between them and us," the ensign ordered. "I'll be checking on Ijhel. You have the bridge, Ajax."

Jimenez was out the door and on his way before Ajax could say "aye." As he scrambled down to the holo-chamber he had a newfound wellspring of energy. His first real turn at the big chair was going better than he could have imagined. But more than that, the relief of it being _over_ had him practically dancing through the corridors. He wondered if this was how the greats endured the rigors of command--maybe Harriman and Rixx and Kira accomplished everything they did out of a panic to escape the pressure.

When he entered Ijhel's holo-chamber he found her sitting cross-legged on the beach of Lake Cataria, working feverishly at her computer. Images blurred around her, struggling to come into focus. "Did you get them?"

"Quiet!" she snapped. Every step of this effort had been delicate, and purely hypothetical, and there was a billion ways for it to fail. But Utana Ijhel was the best holoprogrammer in the quadrant, and if it could be done, Jimenez knew she would do it. He heeded her demand and fell silent as he watched her work. "Stand by...your audiovisual implants are only picking up about half of what your eyes and ears are capable of, but I believe the holomatrix can compensate..."

The blurry objects finally solidified into real holomatter, representing the metal shed that currently imprisoned Commander Kreighen and Lieutenant Tirava. Kreighen looked like hell, his uniform tattered and his skin stained with grime. Tirava's appearance was oddly pristine, as if based on archival footage. Nevertheless, the effect was stunning; it was as if Jimenez and Ijhel were standing in the same room as their crewmates.

"Commander, am I glad to see you," Jimenez blurted out.

"But he can't see or hear you," Ijhel explained. "Remember, we're using Borg interlink frequencies to tap directly into Tirava's cybernetic implants. We're seeing through her eyes, with a little creative license from the holo-emitters. Lieutenant, can you hear me now?"

"Yes," the Andorian mumbled. She looked to Kreighen and explained, "They're coming in clearer now. Ijhel, I don't know how you did it..."

"It was all our young ensign's idea," the Cardassian replied. "Fortunately he realized the neurosuppressant you took to shut out the interlink had probably worn off by now. Of course, we had to keep that cube distracted to make sure they didn't eavesdrop while I established the connection--"

"There's no time for this," Jimenez interrupted. "Tirava, a Borg tactical cube has been giving us trouble, and now they're headed your way."

She relayed the message to Kreighen. "They're all right, I think--they say a tactical cube is entering orbit--"

Kreighen walked up to Tirava, as if to address the others, although they were situated to his left. "Listen to me, Doctor. That cube belongs to a faction of Unimatrix Zero that's using slave labor to fight the Collective." He gestured to a Borg woman slumped in the corner behind him. "I have it on good authority that..."

"Slave labor?" Jimenez asked, momentarily forgetting that the commander wasn't hearing him. "Why would they--?"

Kreighen just kept talking. "...turns out the Xhiryptyr'x are...well...there's no time to get into that. There are dozens of escaped slaves down here fighting with their former masters, and the cube is here to recapture them. I need you to check with Jimenez to find out if we can launch a rescue mission..."

"A rescue mission?" Tirava boggled. "Are you out of your red-blooded human mind? The Xhiryptyr'x hate _us_ more than the Zeroes and the Borg put together!"

"I'm right here, guys," Jimenez tried to interrupt. "But the answer's no. _Albatross_ is in rough shape, and even if it weren't, there's no chance of us cutting through the atmospheric interference with a transporter beam."

Tirava shook her head. "Nathan says they can't beam anybody out."

"What about the shuttle?" Kreighen pressed. "It can't transport as many people, but you could fly it down below the cloud cover and--"

Jimenez couldn't help but address him directly, even though he knew better. "I'm sorry, Jake, but if I thought I could pull it off I'd have already sent Ajax down with the _Hrunting_ to pick you up. We'd never get the shuttle in range without being detected, and then we'd never get her back in one piece." There was no need to relay the whole explanation; Tirava simply lowered her antennae, and the message was clear.

Kreighen grimaced, but willed himself forward. "All right," he said. "Is the transwarp coil installed?"

"What?" Ijhel exclaimed.

Jimenez was similarly stunned. "I--yes, but--"

"It is," Tirava reported solemnly. "But I think--"

"Ensign," Kreighen ordered, "it's up to you to report everything to Starfleet. They need to know what we've learned about Species 10538--the threat they pose to both the Borg and the invasion fleet. You have to tell them about what's going on here, with Unimatrix Zero and the Xhiryptyr'x. Hopefully Admiral Janeway is still in touch with General Korok--I'm betting his faction can put pressure on this one. A lot of people are going to suffer if you don't make it back to the front, Ensign. That's your priority."

"Jake," Tirava demanded, "The Zeroes don't want that to happen; that's probably why they attacked the _Albatross_ in the first place. If Nathan hails them and explains what we know--if we agree not to interfere..."

Kreighen cut her off. "We're _going_ to interfere, Lieutenant. And you and I are going to do anything we can to cover _Albatross_ 's escape. Nathan, Utana...you need to cut off this transmission now before the Zeroes detect it. You have your orders. And...it's been an honor serving with you."


	23. Chapter 23

"They're gone," Tirava confirmed. "The _Albatross_ must have shut down the transmission into my brain."

"Good," Kreighen replied. "With any luck, they'll be back in allied territory in a few hours, assuming we can keep the Zeroes off their tails."

"And how do we _do_ that?" the Andorian quipped. "We're locked in a metal box waiting to be executed!"

Kreighen ignored her attitude and surveyed the small shed that served as their prison, finally setting his eyes on Laura Heimbold. "We're locked in a metal box _with_ a cybernetic organism," he clarified. "Laura, I hate to impose, but I think you'll find I'm gentler than the Xhiryptyr'x were."

She shrugged as best she could, with half of her implants ripped out. "It makes no difference, Commander. From what I heard of your conversation, you and your friends were right--that ship belongs to Unimatrix Zero, and no one on this moon is going to stop them."

"She's right, Jake," Tirava chimed in. "The Xhiryptyr'x already pulled anything of value off of her hours ago--what are you going to find that'll make any difference against an entire army of Zeroes?"

Kreighen shook his head as he set about the indelicate work of scouring Heimbold's body for anything he could use. "Yeah, yeah, I know, ladies." he muttered. "We have to abet slavery because it'll happen no matter what we do. We have to stand by and let our allies commit war crimes for the greater good. We can't win, so why bother? Those bastards really drilled 'resistance is futile' into your heads, didn't they?"

" _That, and a three-inch cortical processor,_ " Tirava seethed.

"Yeah, well, I'm not quite ready to throw in the towel. The Xhiryptyr'x probably overlooked technology they didn't understand..." He snapped loose a component tucked under Heimbold's thoracic assembly. "...like this personal shield generator."

"It's virtually useless," Heimbold countered. "Once we were disconnected from the Collective, we lost the bionetic computational power to quickly remodulate our force fields. The Xhiryptyr'x built their pistols to fire at random frequencies, and we can't keep up."

"That's because you left the Collective almost a decade ago," Kreighen observed as he sat down and picked at the device. "Starfleet's spent almost all of that time perfecting new triaxilation techniques and teaching them to people like me." He glanced up at Tirava. "I'm willing to make the field big enough for two, if you're still with me."

"Just because I think you're wrong doesn't make me a traitor," Tirava snarled. "Just listen to me for a minute! Even if you get that thing working, what then?"

"I'll figure that out when I get there!" he retorted. When that clearly didn't placate her, he added, "Look, I didn't know I'd get my hands on one of these five minutes ago, so I can't plan my next ten moves for you. All I know is that I'm gonna find a way to get the Zeroes to stand down!"

"If you had a plan I _might_ at least see why you're so determined to do this," she argued. "But as it is you're going to risk your life-- _all of our lives_ \--to hobble Unimatrix Zero and save a race of backward, misogynist cretins!"

"People in space need help. It comes with the uniform."

"They don't _deserve_ our help!"

Kreighen clenched the component tightly in his hand, and rose to his feet. "This is not about whether the Xhiryptyr'x 'deserve' to be free; they're intelligent beings and that's the end of that debate. It doesn't matter if the Zeroes 'deserve' to bend the rules because things are tough, or if you and I 'deserve' a vacation on Casperia Prime. We're Starfleet officers, and our duty is clear!"

"It is," Heimbold interrupted, "but not the way you think. Just because you're fighting a war with the Borg doesn't give you authority over anyone else who's fighting them. The Prime Directive applies, Jake. Starfleet has no right taking sides in business between Unimatrix Zero and the Xhiryptyr'x."

"That's a cop-out, and you know it," Kreighen snapped at her. "Starfleet officers liberated Unimatrix Zero and Starfleet officers made it possible for the Kazon to become the Xhiryptyr'x, so don't lecture me about noninterfence. I can tolerate it from an Andorian, but what makes my skin crawl is that I _know_ why you should give a damn. My god, Earth's entire history says this is wrong--would you have collaborated with the Atlantic slave trade, or the World War II labor camps, or the Augment warlords? The Prime Directive is supposed to protect us from our own mistakes, not to grant us license to repeat them!"

"We're a long way from Earth," Heimbold rebutted. "I think you'll find that high-and-mighty rhetoric won't get you very far."

"It doesn't have to." Kreighen tested his modifications to the shield generator, and a green glow fizzled around his body. "It'll be on my shoulders the rest of the way."


	24. Chapter 24

Breaking out of the Xhiryptyr'x's makeshift jail cell wasn't difficult--there had been no real fear of the prisoners escaping, since they would assuredly be shot, so security was relatively lax. Kreighen simply banged on the metal walls until one of the guards barged in to shut him up. Whatever these Kazon had gained from evolving into the Xhiryptyr'x, they had little defense against standard Starfleet martial arts. One quick blow to the back of the head, and the guard was down for the count. In seconds, Kreighen and Tirava were out the door, ganging up on the other guard.

The Xhiryptyr'x watched them emerge and come within arm's reach of him, and instantly moved for his phase pulse rifle. A Klingon or a Nausicaan might have opted for a knife at this range, but the Kazon preferred their guns, and this subspecies retained that tendency. Kreighen bum rushed him, confident that his force field would deflect any stray shots, and knocked him senseless with a right hook to the jaw. Tirava busied herself collecting weapons from the fallen guards, and then rushed to Kreighen's side so that he could extend the field to encompass her.

The refugee camp was too populated and too densely packed for the scuffle to stay a secret for long, and within a minute there were Xhiryptyr'x gathering to open fire the two Starfleet officers. "So far, so good!" Tirava announced as she returned fire. "Any more bright ideas, Commander?"

"These shields could hold out all day!" Kreighen reasoned over the din. He had a point; the technology was designed to repel state-of-the-art energy weapons. The Xhiryptyr'x might as well have been armed with flashlights. "We need to find the Unimatrix Zero encampment and see if there's anything we can use to contact the cube!"

"I don't think it's going to be that easy," she countered, drawing his attention to the eastern sky. As dawn broke through the thick haze in the sky, dark objects were emerging from the yellowing clouds. When they grew closer their shapes became clear, each of them a regular tetrahedron. Neither Kreighen nor Tirava had seen a ship configuration like this before, but they were unmistakeably Borg in their design. 

By the time the pyramids came in for an attack run, there were twenty in all, each about the size of a large Federation shuttlecraft. To a man, the Xhiryptyr'x turned away from their Starfleet enemies, and directed their fire at the incoming fighters. But phase pulse hand weapons were far and away outclassed by the forced plasma cannons now directed at the camp. The first wave of ships flew in with a torrent of firepower, sending the Xhiryptyr'x running in every direction. With the defensive line scattered, the second wave swooped down to keep them off-balance, and shot indiscriminately at tents and other structures. Explosions quickly followed, and then open flames. Within minutes, Kreighen and Tirava had gone from being caught in a shoot-out to being caught in a full-scale panic.

The pair made their way through the fleeing refugees, desperately trying to stay together under what little protection the force field might give them against the blitz. The one advantage they had was that Unimatrix Zero was only interested in corralling the Xhiryptyr'x, not them. By keeping their heads down and refraining from firing back, they were able to withdraw to a safe distance from the refugee camp, as it descended into chaos.

"I tried to tell you," Tirava muttered as they crouched in a gully and watched the village burn. "We can't save these people--it doesn't matter if I want to, or if you want to believe you _could_."

Kreighen's resolve only seemed to strengthen. "It's not over yet."

"When will it be?" she asked. "We can't possibly infiltrate Heimbold's camp; I guarantee there's a pyramid or two over there, providing medical aid to the Zeroes who survived the crash of that sphere."

"The sphere," he realized. "We need to get back to that shipwreck."

"I searched every inch of it!" Tirava protested wearily. "There isn't anything left there!"

"Well now we have a little more incentive to look harder," the commander argued. He began wandering off to the south, trying to get his bearings. "Damn...with that blindfold on, I couldn't keep track of which way we were going when we were led here."

Tirava shook her head in frustration, and pointed her finger in another direction. "Seven and a half kilometers, southwest by west. If we're going to do this, let's get moving before they have any more daylight."

As she started along their new route, Kreighen hurried to catch up. "Wait a minute...you were blindfolded too, right?"

She rolled her eyes, and gestured to her antennae. "These aren't just so you know if I'm happy to see you."


	25. Chapter 25

The long hike back to the shipwreck of Unimatrix Zero's sphere was a largely quiet one. Tirava could only debate their course of action as Kreighen came up wit it, and until they reached the crash site he would have little idea of what they could use to stop the Zeroes. And so, for the most part, they focused on the physical toll of the journey. Neither of them had slept in over thirty hours, and this had an even more profound impact on Tirava's high Andorian metabolism. Kreighen, though, was faring no better, as the chill in the wind was beginning to wear him down.

"Pinkskin," Tirava randomly observed after about an hour of walking.

"What is it?" Kreighen responded.

She realized his confusion. "No, I meant...your skin really _is_ pink. Are you all right?"

"The wind chill out here must be about 2 or 3C," he explained. "My capillaries are dilating. I thought I always looked pink to you..."

"It's just an old expression," she mused, "from first contact between Andorians and humans. To us, you're all _shades_ of brownish-pink, anyway."

"I guess."

"Is there a human nickname for us?"

"I don't...I don't think so." He had no idea why she was bringing this up. "Humans used to discriminate against each other over things like skin color. We're still sensitive about it--I guess that sensitivity influences our relations with other species. 'Blueskin' would feel like...a racial slur."

"Strange," she replied. "I never would have thought of it like that."

Kreighen stopped and turned to face her. "You really don't know much about humans, do you?"

"I know as much as you probably do about Andorians," she argued, "except I realize how little I know."

"Oh, please!" He threw up his hands and resumed walking.

"It's true!" she insisted as she caught up. "Humans always think they understand a culture if they understand the superficial differences, and then fill in the rest with their own identity. Vulcans are logical and dispassionate...but they're really just like repressed humans. Klingons are bloodthirsty and martial...but they want to live to grow old like humans. Betazoids and Risians are just sex-crazed humans to you. Uzaveh, Jake, you think it's possible to negotiate peace _with the Borg_ , and you actually expected the Xhiryptyr'x to buy that!"

"Maybe you're right," he shot back, "but you're no better, believe me!"

"Andorians aren't the only ones who've noticed it! It's a commonly known fact about humans--Sarek of Vulcan even said that it was fueling Cardassian hostilities--"

"I'm not talking about Andorians," he grumbled. " _You_ aren't any better about projecting your values onto other cultures."

"Well, you're one to talk," she scoffed. "All along you keep expecting me to react like some human female..."

"No I don't," Kreighen snapped. "I don't expect you to react like a human female because I don't even understand how _they_ think! But even if I _wanted_ you to be 'barefoot in the kitchen,' that's a whole lot better than you _requiring_ me to be the perfect Andorian man!"

"That is _not_ true!"

"The hell it's not!" he scowled. "Your idea of courtship is to tackle me and see whether I fight back! I'm supposed to put you on a pedestal and never so much as look at another woman, even if you want nothing to do with me! And _then_ you go sleeping around behind my back and expect me to get over it!"

"There's nothing to get over!" Tirava insisted. "Thlane is gone, Jake! What else do you want me to say? That he wasn't very good?"

"If you're so damn committed to me, you shouldn't have slept with him at all!"

"I am _not_ going to let you speak to me like some Xhiryptyr'x male trying to suppress his women!" she countered.

"This is what I'm talking about!" Kreighen thundered. "Humans males _and_ females value mutual monogamy with the people they love! But you can't see that because you just think I'm trying to do things like Andorians, only with the tables turned!"

Tirava stopped in her tracks and stared at him. "I didn't....are you saying you _love_ me?"

"Don't change the subject!"

"I'm _not_ , pinkskin, I--" She froze, her antennae twitching in the wind. "Over that hill. There."

He realized she was talking about the sphere they'd been searching for, and instantly set their squabbling aside. "You're sure? I feel like we passed that same hill five times."

"This is the first one that felt close to the crash site," she offered. "I can't explain it--I just recognize our position."

They wasted no more words on it--by now he was freezing and she was exhausted, and they'd need all the energy they could spare to cover the last leg of the trip. As they reached the top of the hill they saw it emerge over the horizon--the Borg sphere that had led them into the nebula, and this godforsaken moon, in the first place.

"You're not planning to fly that thing, are you?" Tirava asked.

"I'm willing to try," Kreighen suggested, "but I'll settle for weapons, bionetic transmitters, anything we can use to put a stop to all this."

Suddenly, a third voice. "Then you leave me with no choice."

There was no warning, no sign that anyone had been around for kilometers. Tirava and Kreighen wheeled around knowing they were no longer alone, but still unsure whether they had been followed or lured into a trap. What they found left them unconcerned with those details. The former Borg drone was tall and formidable, his pallid skin and black exoplating failing to hide his Klingon stature. A single, crooked tooth jutted through his lips, just as they remembered from friendlier times.

"General Korok," Kreighen gasped. It was, literally, the last man he expected to see here. He wanted to warn the Klingon about Laura Heimbold's faction of Unimatrix Zero, but he had a feeling it would be a waste of breath.

"Commander," he boomed. "It is good to see you both alive. But that changes nothing." He raised his right arm, leveling its mounted plasma beam at the couple.

"Listen to me, Korok," Kreighen pleaded. "Tirava and I are protected by a shield generator I took from one of the other Zeroes. Shooting us isn't going to solve anything."

"I suppose not," the general conceded, and then slapped a control panel on his gun arm with his left hand. "Korok to _Victurus_ \--fire."

Kreighen turned to see a Borg cutting beam lance through the heavens, and obliterate the crashed sphere in one shot.


	26. Chapter 26

The standoff only lasted another fifteen minutes or so. Once Korok destroyed the shipwreck, there was little point in continuing to resist, and when his troops arrived Kreighen and Tirava had no other course of action but to surrender. The pair were taken aboard one of the attack fighters, and were afforded whatever aid they required. During the trip back to the tactical cube _Victurus_ , Tirava slept deeply, having pushed herself too hard, for too long, in the past two days. Kreighen had been run just as ragged, but he couldn't bring himself to rest. He just sat in confinement, allowing his comrade to lean against him, and waited. Korok had said little about his role in this before turning them over to his men, and the commander was determined to have a reckoning.

He was sure Korok would want that too. The two of them had worked together, months ago, and he'd found the general to be an honorable man, in keeping with Klingon virtues. He'd want a chance to justify his actions to Kreighen, although it seemed unthinkable any justification would be sufficient. The use of slave labor in war was even more unthinkable to Klingons than to citizens of the Federation. Perhaps Laura Heimbold had been able to mollify her conscience, but Korok would sooner die than compromise his beliefs. That was, at least, Kreighen's reading of the man, although his current dilemma suggested that reading was in doubt.

When the fighter docked with the _Victurus_ , the pilots moved to escort their prisoners to the airlock. Kreighen looked down at the tangle of white hair against his chest, comfortable with the Andorian woman at his side, and hated to wake her. Their relationship was hopeless--he could see that at long last--but he couldn't stay mad at Tirava, no matter how much she infuriated him. But there was nothing he could do to prolong the moment, and with a gentle nudge she was up and about, ready to face her fate with him.

They were led, at gunpoint, to the cube's command center. Along the way, Kreighen could see and hear the results of his failure. It seemed that many of the Xhiryptyr'x had already been rounded up, and were being led into holding cells. Some resisted and were subdued with stun beams. Others didn't bother--they'd had their taste of freedom and rebellion and, having lost it, would never again dare hope for a better life. A few paused to look back at him, perhaps wondering if they would ever really understand the "Federation" that Askaahh condemned more fiercely than their oppressors.

The command center was manned by a dozen former Borg drones, from a dozen different worlds. Kreighen recognized a Vidiian, a Hirogen, and a Bolian before they were led into a large chamber adjacent to the bridge. There stood Korok, plotting over a map of the sector with two of his lieutenants. When he noticed his guests, he nodded to each man. "Leave us," he announced. As they departed, he glanced to the pair of guards, excusing them from the room as well. Kreighen and Tirava were bound at the wrists, there was little need for security.

Once they were alone, he said his piece. "I never expected to see you again, after you left the convoy to hunt down Glinn Ledret."

Kreighen was willing to take his time. "We destroyed his ship. His transwarp conduit left us out here. I didn't expect to see you anytime soon either."

"Laura and I have been in contact for six years," he admitted. He paced around the worktable, gathering his thoughts. "She's recovering in our medical ward. I assume you were interested--humans are always so preoccupied with one another's wellbeing."

"There were a lot of things I might have wanted to know, Korok," Kreighen retorted. "For example, you could have told me the Xhiryptyr'x that attacked our convoy five months ago didn't mistake you for the Collective; he was trying to finish a fight you started."

Korok didn't care for his tone. "And if I had told you?" he thundered. "What then? Starfleet would never condone the Xhiryptyr'x strategy."

"Neither would their allies." Kreighen refused to back down from the warrior. "The Romulans are still recovering from their Reman problem--they're not looking for another politically awkward slavery issue. And the Klingons...do you really think they'd call this a 'strategy'? Marauding through Borg space, taking slaves like Orion pirates, without honor or dignity?"

"You forget yourself, Commander," Korok growled. "I would tolerate a lecture in honor from Lieutenant Tirava, but I am not interested in hearing you appeal to pity and disguising it as the will of my people!"

"Hey, I can't claim to be an expert on Klingon beliefs," the commander replied. "I just figured the guys that want to die in glorious battle wouldn't send chattel to fight in their place." 

"Then you do not understand this war, or Klingon honor!" Korok was by now nose to nose with Kreighen, looking like he wanted to snap the human's neck. "The greatest glory is victory, victory at any cost! They greatest disgrace is captivity and treason, which in this war is the inevitable result of defeat. If the Klingon Defense Forces under Janeway's command knew of what we have done to the Xhiryptyr'x, they would accept it as a...'necessary evil,' as Laura put it."

"Fine," Kreighen snarled. "So what else will you do in the name of victory? You've already taken slaves and lied to your allies. Maybe you can breed soldiers tailor-made to do your dirty work, and exterminate the Collective from the Delta Quadrant. Or how about you go around brainwashing able-bodied men to join your cause? You can even graft biotechnology and weapons to them. Don't you see, Korok? It's not _worth_ beating the Borg, if we have to fight like they do!"

"Bah!" Korok spat, throwing up his hands and pacing across the room. "You are as stubborn as any human I've known, Kreighen. But it does not matter. I know that Starfleet is committed to winning their war, and preserving their coalition, at any cost. The Federation Alliance needs Unimatrix Zero, and Unimatrix Zero needs the Xhiryptyr'x conscripts. The Romulans will understand it, the Klingons will accept it, and Admiral Janeway will tolerate it."

"Maybe so," Kreighen argued. "But that's assuming you make the case to the Alliance brass, so they all hear your side of it at the same time. And that's not gonna happen, General. By now the _Albatross_ has crossed the front lines, under orders to report all of this directly to Starfleet. And if I know Janeway, she's not going to let the Klingons and Romulans decide for her how to deal with this."

"'Albatross?'" Korok wondered. "That interceptor probe that was in orbit earlier?"

"We captured it from the Collective," Kreighen explained. The rest of the _Hrunting_ crew is aboard."

"I suspected as much." Korok hung his head, pensive but resolute. "Then you should know, Commander, that your _Albatross_ will never carry out your orders. We engaged that vessel when we arrived, and I personally witnessed its destruction."


	27. Chapter 27

There was no way for General Korok to know that the _Albatross_ had survived its apparent destruction. There was no way for Kreighen and Tirava to know that they had spoken to Jimenez and Ijhel _after_ the attack, or that there had not been another engagement. As far as anyone in the room was concerned, Korok's statement was completely true: the _Albatross_ was destroyed with no survivors.

Kreighen was speechless, motionless, trembling with rage and grief. Tirava, though, would not stay silent. "You...killed them. You killed them all."

"And they will take their place among the honored dead," Korok offered, "but I could not lose a war to spare one ship."

"I know that," she rasped, and glared at Kreighen. " _You_ killed them." The commander said nothing, his chest heaving with futile wrath, so she continued. "We could have stood down, we could have said this wasn't our fight! But you _had_ to fight a hopeless battle! And nothing was accomplished for it, except that they're dead! Are you satisfied? Are you proud of yourself?"

Kreighen could barely say one word. "Tirav--"

"No!" she snapped. "This is what you've always done! You never gave a damn--all along you dragged us along with whatever high-and-mighty ideal you wanted to pursue! Never mind if Janeway or the Korok or the whole damned Delta Quadrant would stop at nothing to destroy us for _your_ crimes! We gave you everything and this is what we have to show for it!" Without warning she launched herself at Kreighen, tackling him as best she could in handcuffs.

When it became clear that Kreighen was only barely defending himself, Korok could stomach no more. "That's enough!" he boomed. 

She relented, but only to stand and confront the Klingon. "Why? You're going to kill us both anyway? And for what? For opposing the conscription of the Xhiryptyr'x to fight the Borg? I never objected to it in the first place! I was only following this miserable _karskat_ , and that was only because Starfleet wanted nothing more to do with me! If you're going to execute me, Korok, it'd better not be because I'm in your way, because at this point I'd just as soon join you."

Kreighen scraped himself off the deck, not so much injured as stunned. "L-lieutenant..."

"A warrior may say anything to avoid the executioner's blade," Korok observed coolly. "Particularly if it places her in a position to slit her enemy's throat."

"All that matters," Tirava scowled, "is that I have nowhere else to go, and you need all the help you can get. I don't need you to believe in my intentions. I'll prove them to you." She turned and looked down on the beaten form of her lover. "I'll kill Kreighen."

Korok was much perplexed as intrigued by the suggestion. "That...won't be necessary--there are other ways to--"

"General, I am not offering to do you a favor," she seethed, "I am making a demand. Kreighen dies by _my_ hand, or it will be a very bloody matter to deny me. I demand the rite of the _Ushaan_. My crew is dead, and _his_ blood must pay for theirs!"

The Klingon nodded. He knew of the _Ushaan_ \--a part of the Andorian code of honor stipulating a duel to the death, similar to various customs among his own people. Part of him still suspected a deception--it was foolish to allow enemies to dictate the terms of their capitulation--but if there was a hidden plot in her words, he could not see it. "Very well, Lieutenant--the right is yours. I shall arrange the space needed for the ritual--"

"No!" she shouted. "This is Andorian tradition, and I have no interest in making it a spectacle for outsiders! Besides...I will not defile the memories of my friends by avenging them on a Borg cube. Give me one of your shuttles, I'll take him back to the moon's surface."

"You must take me for a fool, Tirava." What little patience Korok had for this maneuvering was quickly being worn down. "Do you truly expect me to send you right back where I captured you, and lend you one of our fighters? You'd kiss your _par'Mach'kai_ 's wounds and flee at the first opportunity!"

"And where would I go?" she countered. "I doubt your pyramids are any faster than this cube. If you let me take him down there--without an escort--I promise that I will return, and he will not."

"With only your word that he's dead."

"And what difference would it make? Without a ship he'd be stranded. But it doesn't matter, because my word is all you need, Korok. Once an Andorian issues the _Ushaan_ challenge, there is no turning back. You're a Klingon, so you understand what honor means to an Andorian. I swear to you, on the honor of myself and my foremothers...I will kill Jacob Kreighen, or he will die killing me."

Korok was stonefaced at this. And yet, there was a slight curl to his lip that signaled his respect for this oath. "Very well," he answered slowly. "But I expect to see his blood on that uniform."

"I would have it no other way," she replied, her mouth twisting into a bloodthirsty smirk.


	28. Chapter 28

Once the tetrahedral attack fighter had landed, it was impossible to discern which of its four faces was the front of the ship until the aft hatch opened, revealing the interior of the craft. Tirava quickly stormed out of the ship, preparing the implements Korok had replicated for the _Ushaan_ \--a pair of metal mitts to join the combatants by a thick cable, and two of the broad _ushaan-tor_ blades used as weapons in the duel.

She made no effort to coerce Kreighen out of the ship--there was no need to. His hands had been cuffed together since they left the _Victurus_ , and there was little chance he could bypass the fighter's access restrictions to make a getaway. The site she had chosen was a wasteland, with nowhere to hide. Sooner or later, he would have to face Tirava, and she knew he was too pragmatic to put it off.

There was no way out. Kreighen knew that by now. The _Ushaan_ was one of the most important codes in Andorian society, and never entered into lightly. It was enshrined in Federation history due to the Babel Crisis of 2154--an Andorian demanded the _Ushaan_ against a Tellarite, which would have destroyed the first fragile alliance against the Romulan Empire. Jonathan Archer's somewhat Alexandrian solution to the dilemma was to fight in place of the Tellarite, and then legally satisfy the challenge by incapacitating the Andorian without killing him. There was little chance of that gambit working here. Tirava wasn't going to let him render her defenseless, and even if he did she wouldn't let the matter drop at that.

He could have tried talking his way through this, but he'd run out of things to say. Frankly, he had to concede a lot of the points she had hurled at him in the past two days. His crew was gone because of his obstinance, his allies had abandoned him in favor of _realpolitik_ , and the only friend he had left in the galaxy was now sworn to eviscerate him. He had nothing else to look forward to but death, and so he pulled himself up onto his feet, and made his way out into the open to await the inevitable.

He found Tirava sitting on a boulder, losing herself in the diversion of sharpening her blade. She looked up at him with cold, dead eyes, and only said six words to him. "Tango seven three zero november four bravo."

Kreighen recognizes this as the passcode for his restraints, and nearly broke his wrist trying to enter it himself. As the shackles fell away, he moved to approach her, but didn't dare come _too_ close. He wanted to say "you don't have to do this," but he knew she did. He wanted to tell her "I wish it hadn't come to this," but she didn't want to hear it. So he finally began with "I'm sorry, Tirava."

She ignored him and continued to sharpen her knife.

"I know that doesn't help, but I wanted to say it before..."

Tirava tossed him the second _ushaan-tor_. "Pick it up."

"I can't."

"If you don't, I'll..."

"I don't care." He stretched out his arms, palms forward, all but inviting her to take a free shot. "I can't fight you, Tirava. You're stronger and faster than I am. You're a master with these weapons and I've never so much as picked one up before. You're going to kill me either way."

"I'm no Klingon," she muttered. "If you think honor prevents me from striking an opponent in cold blood--"

"Hadn't occurred to me," he interrupted. "I don't care what your honor says you can and can't do. Mine says I don't pick fights with girls. It's something I picked up in recess when I was six--and I guess if there'd been any girls like you on the playground, that would have complicated things--but it's a hard habit to break."

"I'm no girl, Kreighen."

"I noticed. But it doesn't matter. I...I love you, Tirava." He seemed relieved to say the words, and suddenly found them easy to repeat. "I love you. It doesn't make much sense, but I do. And a human definitely isn't supposed to beat up somebody he's in love with."

She winced, but held firm, and tossed him one end of the cable that would bind them together during the duel. "You're not weaseling out of this."

"I don't expect to," he insisted. "I'm just telling you how it is. I know what you have to do, and it would be easier if I hated you as much as you hate me. But I can't fight you any more than you can stand down." He picked up the gauntlet and secured it to his left hand, but made no effort to assume a defensive posture. "Let's get on with it."

Tirava pulled the cable taut between them, and raised her blade. Her technique was unsteadied by his unwillingness to reciprocate, but she held nothing back. In one fluid motion she jerked him off balance and lunged in with her weapon. Blackness overcame Kreighen, and he accepted it.

***

He awoke to the sound of her screaming through gnashed teeth, and scrambled to his feet. Immediately he became aware of a throbbing ache on the side of his head, and a crude bandage wrapping the sharp pain on his palm. It was only after he looked about and finally caught sight of her that he took the time to notice that he was not, in fact, dead.

Tirava was covered with blood. Red blood-- _human_ blood. She wasn't as drenched as she had been in her recent encounter with the Borg, but the particular hue of these stains struck Kreighen in a very personal way. Then he made the connection, and examined the wound on his hand. Curiously, he only began to feel the effects of the blood loss as he started to realize how much of it must have been spilled on her uniform.

She was kneeling on the ground, knife in hand, trying in vain to steel herself from some tremendous pain. As he grew closer, he recognized the cause of her agony. Her antennae were among the most sensitive organs in her anatomy, and she had just sliced one of them from her cranium. Blue blood was now beginning to trickle down her face, contrasting with the crimson smeared against her cheeks.

When she heard his approach, she turned to face him, fighting back tears. "I had to...make it look convincing."

Kreighen couldn't believe this. He'd been willing to let her to make it look convincing by actually killing him; this was an altogether unexpected alternative. "You--you broke your word?"

That observation possibly hurt her worse than her self-mutilation, and she wanted to cry out. But she was at the limit of pain, and could only laugh. "I guess it's the company I keep--I've been corrupted. Cardassians, the Zeroes...you...lying must get easier when you're surrounded by liars!" She wiped her eyes, and tried to compose herself, although her newfound lack of balance didn't help with that. "But don't worry. They'll never know. Your DNA is on the blade, and if they push me for details I'll convince them you're dead."

He couldn't stand to see her like this, anguished and exhausted, and he knelt down to hold her. "Why, though? I thought you meant everything you said back on the cube?"

"I _did_ mean it," she replied. "Most of it. Everything I am says I should kill you, but I knew I couldn't even when I issued the challenge. Nathan, Utana, Ajax...they're _gone_ , Jake. All I have left is you--I had to save you somehow--!"

"I understand," he whispered. "I'm just glad you found a way to get on Korok's good side."

"Did you mean it?"

"Of course," Kreighen balked. "I'd rather you join his crew than hang from his yardarm--"

She seemed to shake off all the pain to give him that familiar angry glare. "No, that you..."

He realized what she meant. "I _love_ you, Tirava. I guess I always have. That's why I put up with all the arguments...and I suppose it's why I argue so hard. I don't care about Andorian customs or human morality or who's sleeping with who--none of that really matters as long as--"

"Uzaveh..." She shook her head, then clumsily reached over to kiss him. "You never know when to shut up, Jake," she added after she was finished. "But I love you too."

Kreighen let out a deep sigh, and finally realized how much he'd needed to hear that. For a time they sat in silence on the hill, bloody and wounded, but finally in harmony. "We picked a terrible time to figure that out, huh?"

"The worst," she smirked. "I can make sure Korok never comes down to look for you, Jake, but are you going to be all right here?"

He let out another sigh, as he surveyed the landscape and considered the low temperature. "No," he reckoned, "but I'll figure something out."

"Knowing you, that means you'll either blow up this moon or lure the Borg Queen here for peace talks." She hugged him tightly, not wanting to leave his side. "But whatever you 'figure out,' do me a favor. Stay alive. Because you _are_ all I have left, Jake, and I _will_ come back for you."

"You've got a deal," he nodded.

"I should go," she moaned. "I can't let Korok get suspicious..." She hauled herself upright, but it was clear she couldn't stand. The severed antenna would need weeks to regenerate, and it would be days before its twin could compensate.

"Now wait just a minute," he insisted. "You're in no shape to walk to your ship, let alone fly it back into orbit. Give yourself a few minutes."

"You're one to talk!" she quipped. "You lose half a liter of blood, and you act as if you'll have this place terraformed overnight!" A wave of dizziness came over her, and she collapsed into his arms. "Then again, you may have a point."

"Please, stay a while," Kreighen said as he stroked her red-stained hair. "You can tell Korok I went the distance with you," he joked. "Besides, I've got the whole place to myself, and I could use the company."


End file.
